Dear Reader,

These poems are made up of lines. Yesterday

B.I. accused me of not moving deep enough into the engaging part.

What is the engaging part? I wonder honestly

If that’s the thing that’s been missing all this time.

I think many of these poems are beautiful. I know

That there are people who frown upon the use of

Words like beautiful, but I think the word is still

Quite useful. Too vague? Too elusive or ever-changing

A quality? Probably. But there is still something in

My head which tells me that these poems are

Beautiful. Beautiful and often surprising. I don’t

Think B.I. wanted to say that they weren’t

Beautiful, just that I wasn’t fully taking a risk

In them emotionally, that they were “entertaining”

Perhaps, but not “moving.” I’m putting words into her

Mouth, of course. Or at least that I’m not revealing an emotional

Self in my poems. I think that was her complaint.

I have heard some of my contemporaries talking of other

Poets and asking (although the recipients of this question

Are always absent) “Where is your emotional content?” But I’ve always

Thought my poems had emotional content. The

Question hits home though because I know that when I began these

Poems I was trying to get away from ex-

Pressing or trying to represent my emotions in poems.

I felt like I’d done that enough already, and

Wore it out. Now I can’t seem how to figure out how

To do what I once did. I can’t seem to write “I”

In a poem which doesn’t somehow transform me

Or at least offer the option of transforming

The speaker or supposing that he/she is someone other

Than me. I think that it might be more accurate to

Say that the emotional content of these poems

Comes through, but indirectly. At least four of these are

Love poems, and there are a few other dedications.

Did I really slap my friend Gabe red in the face singing?

Well, maybe at some point, but “like a butcher?” Not that I

Can recall, but the emotional joy I feel towards him comes

Through. And many of the emotional responses that I have to these

Poems came about long after I wrote them. What emotional

Content of yours is in these poems? How do they resemble you?