survive, with no particular hope of success.

His next book,The Perfect Accident(1978), explores linked themes: the nature of the poet's vocation and the search for meaning in a possibly meaningless existence.


Houdini" (32) and "Poetry" (39) depict the poet as a trickster figure. In the latter he writes:

This poetic magic

 province of Coyote

 Plato

 called literature

 Goeteia

 knew the poets work

 With lies & illusions

 Call it a dance,

 A minuet in time,

 it has always been

 A sleight of hand;

 the magician knows

 Loud incantation

 masks the actions

 Of hands

 Plain trickery