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JH: So the poem is uncertain to such a pitch that the uncertainty of words seems a paradise of certainty? The myriad interpretations and even definitions a word has to offer may indeed seem refreshingly limited to a poem waiting to be written (or read). The poet as pillar of calm, compared to the poem? Is comparison of poet and unwritten poem the act that creates a written poem? Who does the comparing, poet or unwritten poem? Perhaps the comparing is done afterwards by the written poem or the reader?


AHB: The poet as pillar of calm, there's something to that. Not that I for one feel much calm. Perhaps in this instance, my feelings don't matter. Or at least, the nervous proposition of who I am is only a part of the writer. Or the writer is the calm part of who I am. In the act of writing, of any art, tho one may struggle with technical matters, one is calm in the act. A connection to the flow. Even as a messy, confused young writer, I felt calm in the writing act. This image you make, the comparison (or relationship?) of poet and unwritten poem, maybe that does create the written poem. I carry an image of the poet, and I don't mean in the careerminded way, but of this maker with whom I relate. And I sense a written poem out there, the one poem. These considerations are not actively or consciously present very often for me, but I am aware of them periodically. I usually content myself with saying I'm a writer, which is easily prioven by the mass of writing I'm made. Rarely do I think of myself as poet, for that seems more, well, I was going to say arbitrary, but I also mean honourific, and I also mean elemental. Elemental in the sense that a writer could be writing ad copy, but a poet aims (even crappy poets) towards something more basic. Well, la-dee-dah. We'we smoking out psychological territory, aren't we?