I wrote these poems and stories over thirty years: at Rutgers, where I taught in the New Jersey Writing Project, in the Ontario Writing Project, and in Nevada at two community colleges. Different titles and different lengths of time, some in the summer, some not. I had no thought of publishing them, ever. . After I had two strokes in the space of one week, I decided to look again at the poems and the stories. The logic was gone, but the imagination was running wild. I headed to the garage and looked to see what I could find in a file folder. I brought them inside, took them out to see what I had, organized them in sequence (more than a few times!), looked them over again, put them on the computer, and wrote five more poems. The first one was "Eva" and the rest followed, pre-stroke and post-stroke. I shaped these poems and stories myself. I added a word, or words, on the computer, changed the arrangement of the poems/stories, deleted "stuff, " or added some different words so that it would seem to me to be "finished." The book as it is now features 16 poems and three short stories, all of which emerge from the author's life. "The poems are of love, humor, anger, grief, and completeness. The short stories are breath-taking tales of people important to the author, deeply honest stories about heartbreak and love.