"We've never had to worry about money because of BYU," says Kitty. "It subsidizes Leslie's poetry. It's been wonderful. Without BYU, I don't know what would have happened."

In "Crossing Borders," Guy Lebeda of the Utah Arts Council says of Norris, "He perceives more of the experiences of life. He has antenna for receiving information that you and I don't have. He's living the most intense life that I know of."

Norris, who was held spellbound by the mere touch of a sandstone wall and the clouds rolling overhead, still has his antenna up and working. Once he was out in the yard when he heard a small boy next door talking to his dog. "There are three things I want you to remember," the boy told the dog. Norris rushed over to the fence to hear what the boy would say. From that experience came a children's book, "Albert and the Angels."

Ask Norris about the creative process and this is what he says: "I think I do most of my work walking about. I let my mind go. Most of my work is waiting really. I wait for the poem to come in and be ready and welcome it. But I train for it. I study every day."

His study consists of reading. These days he favors Yeats, Wordsworth, Henry Vaughn. "He reads for pleasure what other people read for penance," says Kitty. "It's not accessible to most people, but nothing's inaccessible to Leslie."

He used to write daily, although he claims much of his work was tossed in the garbage bin at the end of the day. Kitty would come in to the office later and read through the stuff, and, if Norris is to be believed, threw it back in the bin.

These days he writes most of the poem in his head and lets "the image breed. Then I get a couple of lines and come home as quickly as I can and write. Sometimes it's gone. If they are really strong signals, the thing will come back strong. Now I'm getting signals from parts of the poem I have not gotten to yet. I'll write them on the side. I'm getting all the images. Then I get the last one when I know I'm not going to get anymore. Now is the time of labor."

As a teenager, he sent his poems to Watkins, a poet he admired. After one of the bookstore meetings, Watkins took Norris aside and told him he didn't work hard enough on his poems. As Norris recalls it in "Crossing Borders," Watkins told him, "You really just scribble them down and you never look at them and read them properly. Put them in a drawer for six weeks and preferably for six months and take them out and those that are dead throw them out and those that have a spark of life, work and work and work and work until there is nothing more you can do with them. And then if there is not a mark of that work, if the poem seems to be completely spontaneous . . . then you've got a poem."