Norris has said that this volume was influenced by Sufism (Quarry 87). In typical mystic's fashion, he advises a denial of ego as the way to success as a poet because "where the poets have failed/is in having desired to be canonized/in the palace of art" (71). Through the abandonment of ego the poet becomes "the perfect lens/for the world to look through/in order to be able to see itself." (73). Elsewhere he says that "in its purest state poetry is visionary & oracular" ("Some Notes..." 101) and that he believes "in the total mystery of organic consciousness and the unknown power which may speak through a poet & which is the ultimate Creator" (107). Acts of the Imagination illustrates these ideas more completely than any of his other books. hirlwinds(1983) contains Norris' best work since TheBook of Falland marks another major step in his maturation. It is largely a book about a poet finding himself. The tone is affirmative. For the first time Norris goes beyond merely voicing his wish to become a poet and tells what he thinks a poet is and isn't. He wants to shed "the pretensions and mannerisms of a genteel speaker": and not have to worry about what archetypes it all hearkens back to and how it, if I play my cards right and write it up well, it'll all be Art ("The End of Literature" 12-13) n "Poetic License" (43-45), he satirizes postmodern poetics and its emphasis on the poem as unplanned process of discovery: He asks himself "How to make art appealing" (44).