As A Southerner I Would Have To

When You Grow Up In A Totally Segregated Society, Where Everybody Around You Believes That Segregation Is Proper, You Have A Hard Time. You Can't Believe How Much It's A Part Of Your Thinking.

I Used To Write Sonnets And Various Things, And Moved From There Into Writing Prose, Which, Incidentally, Is A Lot More Interesting Than Poetry, Including The Rhythms Of Prose.

Before The War It Was Always The United States *are*, After The War It Was The United States Is... It Made Us An Is.

I Don't Want Anything To Do With Anything Mechanical Between Me And The Paper, Including A Typewriter, And I Don't Even Want A Fountain Pen Between Me And The Paper.

A Combination Of All That Was Best In The Gladdest Days Of The Departing Year.