Art, not life, offers escape from despair. Poetry becomes the way out from the disappointing "finite changing world": "Poetry has always been, for me, an open door,... either out of or into my life depending upon where I'm starting from" (45)
n the surface, The
Book of
Fallis a
loose narrative of love and its minor irritants, but beyond
that it is a story of dark against light, life against
death, creativity against spiritual sterility. It is the
book in which Norris begins to develop his sense of what it
is to be a poet and what the power of poetry is.
utokinesis(1980) also dramatizes the
conflict between creativity and sterility. This time Norris
almost loses faith in his powers as a powt and suicide
becomes a possibility.
orris reveals himself as an unsure romantic poet.
In "The Romantic Heart" (12) he senses the inadequacy of his
brand of romanticism:
The
romantic heart has a leaky valve...
It is
flawed...
often
it pretends to be a part of something greater,
something that, in love, it can regain.
"Pretends" is troubling. Perhaps there is no "something greater" and the wish is to be pitied. Love might not be the door to the union with that "something greater."
he
pessimism reaches a climax in the three last poems. In "The
Fear," (76) he agonizes over the loss of his powers as a
poet. "The Yellow River at Nighttime" (77) suggests suicidal
wishes--"Li Po leaps into the watery moon;/it's so
close/&, at last, so easy." And "MacIvor's Point" (78)
finds Norris staring into the water, attracted by the
