The Emotional Stakes A Memoirist Bets With

I'm Bred For Farm Work, And For Such Folk, The Only A's You Get Come From Effort. Strife And Strain Are All The World Can Offer, And They Temper You Into Something Unbreakable Because Lord Knows They'll Try -- Without Let Up -- To Break You.

In My Godless Household, Poems Were The Closest We Came To Sacred Speech -- The Only Prayers Said.

Childhood Was Terrifying For Me. A Kid Has No Control. You’re Three Feet Tall, Flat Broke, Unemployed, And Illiterate. Terror Snaps You Awake. You Pay Keen Attention. People Can Just Pick You Up And Move You And Put You Down.

Reading Is Socially Accepted Disassociation. You Flip A Switch And You’re Not There Anymore. It’s Better Than Heroin. More Effective And Cheaper And Legal.

I'd Spent Way More Years Worrying About How To Look Like A Poet -- Buying Black Clothes, Smearing On Scarlet Lipstick, Languidly Draping Myself Over Thrift-store Furniture -- Than I Had Learning How To Assemble Words In Some Discernible Order.