If You Want To Study Writing, Read

I Abhor The Idea Of A Perfect World. It Would Bore Me To Tears.

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 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.

But The Same Thing Was True In The Army. You Slept In A Barracks With All Kinds Of People Of Every Nationality, Every Trade, Every Character And Quality You Can Imagine, And That Was A Good Experience.

The Civil War Defined Us As What We Are And It Opened Us To Being What We Became, Good And Bad Things... It Was The Crossroads Of Our Being, And It Was A Hell Of A Crossroads.