"Samnang" is based on a story I read in a Dallas paper about a Cambodian teenager who lived through some of the atrocities there. Her name means "lucky."
"Straw Man" was the first poem published by H. Edgar Hix rather than Hubert E. Hix. It was written a few months after my second suicide attempt. (Two attempts and I've never succeeded in even hurting myself. I can't seem to get it right. Thank God.)
"Grandmother Believed" is loosely based on my relationship with my Grandmother Seavy. I would not be a poet if it were not for her. I would not be the believer I am, the independent spirit nor the solitary I am if it were not for her.