I had been warned about Jews by my gentile friends - they did terrible things with knives to boys.

I can still remember the feel in my hand of that most wonderful American coin ever minted, a nickel with a buffalo on one side and the head of an Indian on the other. That nickel was a daily proof of our country's past. Bring it back!

The sharpest memory of our old-fashioned Christmas eve is my mother's hand making sure I was settled in bed.

All poetry is an ordered voice, one which tries to tell you about a vision in the un-visionary language of farm, city, and love.

All families had their special Christmas food. Ours was called Dutch Bread, made from a dough halfway between bread and cake, stuffed with citron and every sort of nut from the farm - hazel, black walnut, hickory, butternut.

The years rolled their brutal course down the hill of time. Still poor, my clothes still smelling of the horse barn, still writing those doubtful poems where too much emotion clashed with too many words.

Corncobs are the greatest fire-making tinder.