We can't understand this phenomenon in poetry--this closed, unshared "I"--unless we look at its source, the closed ego of modern man, the neurotic burden which to some degree cripples us all. I mean that ego which separates us from the life of the planet, which keeps us apart from one another, which makes us feel self-conscious, inadequate, lonely, suspicious, possessive, jealous, awkward, fearful, and hostile; which thwarts our deepest desire, which is to be one with all creation. We moderns, who like to see ourselves as victims of life--victims of the so-called absurd condition--are in truth its frustrated conquerors. Our alienation is in proportion to our success in subjugating it. the more we conquer nature, the more nature becomes our enemy, and since we are, like it or not, creatures of nature, the more we make an enemy of the very life within us.