Most of the poems in this collection were written during my twenties and thirties. I don’t recall precisely when I stopped writing verse, although I know that by sometime in my forties most of the poetry had been drummed out of me. Only five of the fifty poems have ever been published before, one in the faculty bulletin of my elementary school when I was ten years old, three in college literary magazines, and the other in a minor journal from which I received one dollar in payment, which I still have. I revisited my youthful efforts out of curiosity and a mild case of nostalgia. To my surprise, sorting through the tattered, yellowing scraps of paper on which my poems were written turned out to be a great deal of fun. (Gemini Originals, 2018)

Paul at 27, when poetry was in the air.