The song of the man whose touch

The poems in The Song of the Man Whose Touch represent a kind of spiritual autobiography of the years 1970 to 1973. They represent a gradual awakening of a poetic consciousness, along with the increasing arrogance it takes to define onoself as poet. This arrogance, in imagining that the events of any individual's life could possibly have enough significance or meaning to be used in a poetic way, will not, I devoutly hope, interfere in the appreciation of the poems as works of art, since I cannot conceive of any other foundation on which to build a poetry that requires as much fidelity as possible to what really happened. This is a roundabout way of saying, I suppose, that my poetry is in very large measure concerned with the nature of reality/fate/God/whatever and how that affects man, or at least this man. I have yet come to any conclusions on the subject. My thesis is merely an attempt to define the problem, or, even less, to become aware that there is a problem