THE FOREWORD BLUES
Wesli Court said I should write a book,
A bunch of blues-enough to fill a book,
And he'd design the cover. I said, "Look,
If you'll write half of them, then I will choose
A ball-point pen, a felt-tip-I will choose
To join you in a modicum of blues."
And that's the reason, Reader, we are here-
You, Wes and me-we three assembled here
Among these turning leaves yellow and sere.
We hope you'll think the words we write are fine,
Our writing bold and dark, but our wordage fine . . . ,
At least we hope you'll like the cover design.
Envoy Epilogue
Go, little book of sorrows, cares and woes,
But Wesli's gone. Where? Only goodness knows.

Lewis Putnam Turco is a prolific author of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. He is the founder of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center, and the creative writing program at the State University of New York College at Oswego. Turco's first book of criticism, Visions and Revisions of American Poetry, won the Melville Cane Award of the Poetry Society of America, and his A BOOK OF FEARS: POEMS, with Italian translations by Joseph Alessia, won the first annual Bordighera Poetry Prize. He is also the author of three additional titles published by Bordighera Press: SHAKING THE FAMILY TREE: A REMEMBRANCE (1998), LA FAMIGLIA: THE FAMILY (2009), and THE HERO ENKIDU (2015). Turco received the John Ciardi Award for lifetime achievement in poetry.