The Poetry

of

Norman Buller

Why do I write? Probably out of a lifelong fascination with language and what it can be made to do combined with an inner need to share my life experience with others..

For whom do I write? I can’t improve on Igor Stravinsky’s reply to that question.

I write for myself – and the hypothetical other.

Some years ago, while reading a translation of work by the Hungarian poet Sándor Weöres, I came across the following:

The reader reads the poem
But the poem also reads the reader.

I had never encountered this observation before but it immediately struck me as being true. Closely reading a genuine poem can not only enlighten us about the poem and the experience it re-presents but also about the sort of persons we, the readers, are. That, it seems to me, is as good a reason for reading genuine poetry as one is ever likely to find.

If there are any ‘hypothetical others’ reading this, I hope you enjoy the poems.