mysteries below the ocean's surface: "The sea's transparency/extends only a short way out/& then there are the secrets of deep water".
orris expands on the theme of
love as link to the "beyond" in To Sleep, To Love (1982).Again, Norris links fulfilment as a
lover to his fulfilment as a poet, and the sense of longing
for the absent loved one is also a longing for spiritual and
artistic completion. The poet is a lover and the Muse the
loved one.
nxiety and gloom about
the poet's lot abound. "At A.J.M. Smith's Reading At the
Cote St. Luc Library (Oct. 19, 1977)" (19) describes a
poetry reading which almost no one attends. "You live in
fear" he says in "The Bridge" (32), "of the day poetry/will
walk out of your life". In "Envoi" (63) he gives up on love,
and by implication, pursuit of the Muse and a career as a
poet: "All I want is my life back/& a way to live
it."
his renunciation of
poetry was short lived and within a year Norris produced
Acts of the
Imagination
(1983).
This book overflows with images of light and dark, and also
focuses on his battle with depression and insecurity. This
time the poems chronicle his recovery after a period of
unhappiness when he has been: "holding on tight to be a blue
blanket,/to an ideal vision of a blue world." (56) which has
seen him through the dark night.
he "first act of the
imagination," is freeing oneself from death-giving habits,
untying the soul from the
body's
gravitational dominion, finding a
way
to rise above the infinite
gorge
that will cannibalize you
(54)
