Poetry book

I guess this is what its like to illustrate for someone else. Not knowing exactly what they want or visualize themselves or trying to keep in mind what they want to see but still keep the work true to yourself. Its not like when you illustrate a book and there is a story behind it with characters and descriptions. I am making illustrations for a poetry book and have no idea If what I am doing is actually going to be what the Poet would like to see in the end. It all seems very abstract to me.