I was fortunate enuf to visit Alan in NYC recently where he was so generous as to give me what might every remaining bk of his that I don't already have 2 or so from other people. I'll probably read them in chronological order - this being the earliest of them.

Alan was probably in his mid-to-late twenties when he wrote this. I think of it as being somewhat in the throes of so-called language-centered writing birthing its middle age - or, perhaps, its adolescence. The title is, presumably, the author's name, Alan Davies, w/o capitalization & w/ the "l", the "D", & the "i" removed & replaced w/ spaces. A scan thru the poem reveals that these 3 letters are absent throughout.

This absence, however, is not thru removal, as it is in the title, but simply thru the vocabulary used not having these letters. What this signifies, if anything, I don't know & won't speculate about.

Each right-hand page has 3 widely separated stanzas. Each stanza has 3 lines w/ 4 to 7 words. There's no punctuation or capitalization. Here's a sample:

amen worm earns ear roam
avows essence scorn ace arms numen
vase urn raves no rose arse craven

I really don't know what to make of this. It may be no more (or less) than a simple formal arrangement of words that Alan likes that don't have the above-mentioned 3 letters. At any rate, once again, rating it seems absurd. It is what it is.