4/15/66

The center of creative literary expression is, in the mind
of the poet, an expanse of internal vision. One critic I have
read referred to the necessity of the poet being able to
visualize his images. I think this is true, and what follows
from this is a questioning of the individual poet's availability
of visual expanse. I think there is an external component to
this, but the poet is primarily concerned with the internal
componant. In myself (in my poetry) one teacher of mine noticed an absence of
color and I have noted my own preoccupation with the color
gray. In psychological terms this, I have learned, relates to
the *directedness* and suspiciousness of my thought (see
Shapiro's *Neurotic Styles*) classified as paranoid style which
results in a loss of awareness of the "plain face" of things.
I am now strugging to regain this plain face of things so as
to add to the barren landscape of my imagination. It is as though
my internal visual universe had no physical dimension or emotional
dimension but simply an intellectual and esthetic dimension, making
me ill-suited for poetry creation-yet I want very much to write
poetry. I think I will have to develop, in addition to endeavoring
to broaden my inner visual world, a way of associating ideas on a
purely visual level, taking from the esthetic of words themselves
some basis for my imagery. I have previously tried this with my
association poetry of 1964 an experiment which failed.

Enlarging on the internal landscape idea, I have also noticed
that my inner sense of music is intact and extremely sensitive
and employable in writing. However visual imagery is at the base
of poetry- perhaps in developing a mode of verse suited to my own
imagination I might try to further expand the usefullness of this
sound sensitivity- not only on the level of recreating sound (Poe)
but use it in an analogous sense to visual imagery- the symbolic
and the personal and the universal. I think I was inconsciously trying
to do this in my poetry of 1964, in that it is a verse of pure sound,
employing the sound an connotations of words used in a pure sense
(as in abstract painting where color is used in its pure dimensions)
However,I sacrificed continuity and this is not necessary...

6/66

A reminder (when I *need* it least, I
can *know* it) that life need not end
until you are in the grave.

Suicide is, at least, a desperate
attempt to become reborn. But one
can be reborn (simply!) by changing
one's mind about oneself.

Give them time- they will reveal
themselves to you- or you will find the
part of yourself which will let you see
(understand, receive, have, give to) them.