Barbara Guest, from "Shifting Persona"

The person with the omnipotence of a cloud hovers over a poem pointing to the direction that it should take.

The poem’s concealed autobiography. A memoir of itself which is released as it becomes a presence existing in time.

When the poem is on its feet, to leave it alone to express its own person. The relief from the intensity of the poem’s presence as it heats up.

An astonishment throughout the poem at the vibrations of its ego. “I” becomes the bystander and the poem is propelled by the force of the “person” stripped bare.

Richard Wollheim writes: “The artist is essentially a spectator of his work.”

(Forces of Imagination, pp. 40-41)