These poems tell the story of my early life in the Bronx. If you were an urban kid during the '50's, '60's or '70's, my poems will open up a flood of memories documenting important chapters of your life.
Life in the Bronx molded me as a potter molds an indistinguishable lump of clay into a work of art that is easily traceable to its creator.
Each poem tells a story -- life in the streets, life on the playground, being a public-school kid, navigating the insecurities and hormones of the teenage years -- the issues of popularity, testing limits, learning the pleasures and head bumps of wine and drugs, romance, rebellion, the high school journey, and the importance of friendship.
For our parents, the Bronx was an affordable place to live. For us the buildings, playgrounds, candy stores, bakeries, pizza shops and street side benches created an environment in which we built our own community. Here we learned to navigate life free of adult supervision. And in the process, each generation passed on to the next the classic New York City games of Stickball, Johnny on the Pony, Ring-a-levio, Stoopball, Red Light Green Light, Hopscotch, shooting marbles and flipping baseball cards.
The people who inhabit my poems are as varied as their celebrated successes and their personal tragedies. From advanced placement classes to drug addiction, the Bronx was a place where boys and girls crafted lifelong friendships as strong, or perhaps stronger, than those inherited by family.