A Joke Is Necessary At This Time.

I Was Fortunate That By The Time I Was Born, There Were A Lot Of Comforts And At The Same Time I Lived In A Neighborhood Where It Was Brought To My Eyes Every Single Day That People Didn't Live Like Me. Every Day I Knew That Many Of My Friends "got Relief." That Was Important In My Thinking About The World, Thinking That Not Everybody Lived That Way.

In The End, Long Life Is The Reward, Strength, And Beauty.

A Joke Is Necessary At This Time.

When I Was About Twenty-one, I Published A Few Poems. Maybe I Wrote A Couple Of Stories Before, But I Really Began To Write Stories In My Mid-thirties. My Kids Were Still Little, And They Were In School And Day Care, And I Had Begun To Think A Lot About Wanting To Tell Some Stories And Not Being Able To Do It In Poetry.

What We Owe Men Is Some Freedom From Their Part In A Murderous Game In Which They Kick Each Other To Death With One Foot, Bracing Themselves On Our Various Comfortable Places With The Other.