What prompted you to begin writing poetry? A mother thwarted in her dream of becoming a surgeon because, although she got accepted into an accelerated high school program in San Francisco in the ‘30s, her alcoholic father beat her if he found her reading or doing homework at home. Running away at 16, she met my handsome Italian dad and became a mother of three sons. Collecting and reading books was a hobby of hers, and I developed a love of reading, spending a lot of time at the local library. I actually was guilty of sometimes reading page after ...