Monsignor On His Desk Comments

This is a humbled Monsignor, I'd almost say he is reduced in stature to that of a writer who has no audience - that is the meaning of OBLIVION TROUPE, right? Although he struggles to writes frequently, consistently, faithfully he has no audience that will read his works and give him the encouragement of knowing his writing is not just self-expression but also communication. Those are the two elements which motivate US WRITERS - SELF EXPRESSION and COMMUNICATION. We want to KNOW there is at least one thread that connects us to a reader who gives a symbolic tug on the thread to let us know simply but profoundly - YES, MESSAGE RECEIVED! (Hurrah, cries the writer, or perhaps only thinks it.)

You coined a name for those poets who write out a sense of purpose but without any of the normal rewards of ame and fortune (well, poets never get fortune, only fame!) - the OBLIVION TROUPE. I suppose you and I and countless others at PH belong to this troupe of dogged troubadours. We may be no more significant in the Universe than the flies the poet killed. So it goes. Herman Melville wrote poetry and fiction after the failure of MOBY DICK to no avail - until the 1920s when his writing reached the empyrean and has stayed way up there ever since. Maybe some young poet circa 2199 will read my comments and think in bewilderment, They didn't appreciate Cefai back then! What were they thinking?