Of the two main divisions of this thesis, the first (sections I-VIII) consists of poems selected from a completed, but as yet unpublished book manuscript, The Storm, and the second (Addenda) consists of work taken from a projected second book of poems. The former poems are very approximately in the order of their composition and have been chosen from the poems in The Storm manuscript because they constitute the bulk of my finished work and can indicate both the development of my grasp of technique and the influence this development has had upon my discovery of themes. "Passing A Sawmill At Night," for instance, is a forerunner of the more ambitious title poem, "The Storm." Although both poems can stand independently in one volume, the shorter one is clearly related to the longer in both subject and treatment. Both poems undertake the exploration of a father-son relationship (as do "The Wavering Field," "The Gulf," and a later poem, "The Circle Of Struggle"), and each utilizes flashback techniques. In "The Storm," however, this technique is augmented by both dreams and a dream-like vision, and the narrative itself is far more elaborate and is textured more suggestively
