News from Where I Live: Poems Book

This is one of the most fascinating books that I have read in a long, long time. I was entering the second grade in Fort Smith, Arkansas in 1957 -- the year of the school integration crisis in Little Rock. What is interesting, is that in my second grade class was a young African-American boy that was the first to attend a public school in Fort Smith. Orval Faubus was governor for almost all of my developmental years -- from that time until he decided not to run in 1966. I remember all the mixed feelings that people had about him, and how strange that was to me. This book opened up the nuances of his life, his political life, and how he became the person and governor that he was. Many of the names that are mentioned, are names that I remember from my childhood. Faubus was a character, and more people need to read and understand that character. It might show them what a life in politics can do to a person.