I like to write and teach in many genres, from teleplays to non-fiction. My new memoir in poetry, We Didn't Come Here for This, will be published by BOA Editions in March of 1999. My last book, These Upraised Hands, was a collection of narrative poems and dramatic monologues. My novel, Roxa: Voices of the Culver Family, won the 1990 Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award for the best first novel. I have also written ten screenplays and plays. One of them, Rachel’s Dinner, starred Olympia Dukakis and was aired nationally on ABC-TV in 1991. My radio play about firefighters, Rescue, was commissioned by the BBC and was heard world-wide on BBC 3 in 1997. Now I’m writing a non-fiction book called Saving Troy, about a year I spent riding with the professional firefighters and paramedics in Troy.

I have taught the writing of screenplays, poetry, and fiction at a number of colleges, including the State University of New York at Albany, and I especially like to show students how they can form their own ideas into poems or stories or screenplays themselves.

The following poem, "Kindergarten Day", appeared in These Upraised Hands, and was recently featured on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, on National Public Radio.



Kindergarten Day 

You’ll be the first one on the bus, 
the first kid it stops for. 
You can pick the best seat, 
right up in front near the driver. 
It goes to kindergarten, remember? 
We went there last week, 
after we unpacked from Virginia.
Yes, there are still fleeches in the swamp there. 
And it’s not fleech.
It starts with an "l", like lost, 
no, like lemonade. 
You’ll be the only kid for one turn, 
that quick one, 
right after the short pine trees.
I don’t know if there are more ants than pine trees 
in the whole world.
What do you think? 
Of course we’ll wave.
We’ll wave until you’re all the way past the trees. 
No, I promise, 
the bus goes to your school, 
the long building with the red swings outside, 
next to the Black Angus field, 
with all the cows that don’t give milk, 
next to the blue water tower, 
remember?
You said it was the spaceship 
that brought you here from Out West. 
I know you’re not kidding.
I believe you. No, that’s not a gulture. 
It’s a crow. 
And it’s not gulture, 
It starts with a "v", like video.
Crows don’t eat people.
You don’t watch cartoons in kindergarten.
Your teacher’s name is Mrs. Klose.
They write your name on a paper card
and stick it on your shirt,
C-A-L-E-B, Caleb,
big enough so everyone can see it,
so if you get lost they’ll know where you belong.
Mrs. Klose won’t squeeze you to death
if you talk in kindergarten.
Who told you that?
Emily goes to a different school.
It isn’t true.
Here comes the bus.
Remember,
one chocolate milk for snack.
The quarter’s in your pocket, right here.
Your sandwich is in your new pack.
Yes, you have to eat all the lettuce.
Your thermos unscrews to the left.
No, this is your left.
Sherry is your bus driver.
Yes, you can talk to her.
She’s not that kind of stranger.
Of course we love you.
Smoke, I know.
You’re right, that’s pollution.
Tell Mrs. Klose about it.
The bus isn’t going Out West.
Yes, the house will still be here after school.
Okay, it’s called kindergarten.
Yes, Mom and I will be here.
Go ahead now.
Just wave until you pass the pines.
Yes.
When you come home.
Yes.
Good-bye.
Don’t forget to keep waving.
Yes, we’ll still see you.
The windows aren’t that dirty.
Yes.
Have fun.
Good-bye.
Yes.