I Wanted To Write Poetry Almost A

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.

For My Oxford Degree, I Had To Translate French And German Philosophy (as It Turned Out, Descartes And Kant) At Sight Without A Dictionary. That Meant Germany For My First Summer Vacation, To Learn The Thorny Language On My Own.

Soldiers Of The American Revolution Fought That 18th Century War With Heavy Muskets. In The Early 20th Century, We Kids Fought It Every Fourth Of July Not Only With Exploding Powder And Shimmering Flares, But With All Of Our Senses.

Touch Was Important. The Evening Of The Third Of July We Would Go Around The Neighborhood And Look At The Fireworks Others Had Bought, Taking Them Out Of The Brown Paper Sack And Handling Them Cautiously As If They Were Precious Stones. There Was Envy When We Saw Sacks With More In Them Than We Had.

Has The Painter Not Always Gone To An Art School, Or At Least To An Established Master, For Instruction? And The Composer, The Sculptor, The Architect? Then Why Not The Writer? Good Poets, Like Good Hybrid Corn, Are Both Born And Made.