I wanted to write poetry almost a little more than I wanted to eat.

Contrary to slanderous Eastern opinion, much of Iowa is not flat, but rolling hills country with a lot of timber, a handsome and imaginative landscape, crowded with constant small changes of scene and full of little creeks winding with pools where shiners, crappies and catfish hover.

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.

Every Christmas should begin with the sound of bells, and when I was a child mine always did. But they were sleigh bells, not church bells, for we lived in a part of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where there were no churches.

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

Other families bought automobiles; we had a horse-headed hitching post in front of our house and drove horses.

Without vision you don't see, and without practicality the bills don't get paid.