How can ....

... a book of poems read like a novel, a story, a solid piece. Gestalt. This is what I have to work on. It's not about my individual poems - it's about putting them together. The poems were better in this year's CBC contest, but maybe they didn't make the same whole when put together as a chapbook. What story do my poems, together, tell?

And that's a nut too isn't it? What poet doesn't wonder if her poems really have much to tell? Same o, same o. The other day I subbed a poem and one of the critters wrote "hurrah, Jude is back!" She was referring to poems I wrote last spring. I'm not sure I get it. Some poems are simply words about a day, a moment. Dull dull dull. Why does she want to read that? And how is the poet to know if something is even worth putting down on paper? On the other hand poems are not just dalliance. So if it comes to the surface, it's gotta get put down. They all seem different. A rabble. I babble. But somewhere the answer to all this answers the original questions as well. Put the poems that Nola likes in one book, put the poems that Mike likes in another, and so on. Ha ha.

OK I get it. The issue is inner frame of reference. We grow them as we mature, through therapy, some people don't have any at all and so rely on the world to provide it. I've been nurturing my own for about 2 years. That's it. Patience, jude