He's a man of immense artistic talents masquerading as a down-home boy,

I walked home to my apartment to find my wife sitting before our small black and white TV, in tears. Confused images on the screen - a caravan, a sniper or snipers...Then Walter Cronkite removing his glasses to announce that the President was dead.

A young man opened the door and announced that Kennedy had been shot. At first I thought, what kind of a stupid pre-Thanksgiving joke was that to pull. But he said it was no joke, that he'd heard it on the radio,

And what was there over against that? The marriages of two of my sons, and Paul's new life as a young priest. Then the arrival of grandchildren, ... serving me imaginary tea.

I think Barry is a good foil for my poems. He's dark, gritty, unrelenting, but a real searcher too. A veritable Kierkegaardian figure, one of the most devout agnostics (his word) I know,

Lyric poetry is by its very nature elegiac - we write about what in fact is already slipping away from us,