Look Homeward Asheville: Poems, Stories and Illustrations

The poems center on three thematic sections: Times and Places, Musings and Introspections, and Fables and Stories. The first is defined as reflecting on times and places. Among these is the poem "Asheville: A Sonnet," which tells of the flow of people into the region and their marks upon it. In a following work entitled "Limbs in Riverside,"the poet talks of walking through an Asheville cemetery hearing the residents' laments of life's lost opportunities. The second theme of musings and introspections includes "Children of the Earth" a moving poem of youth's innocence in the presence of the Holocaust. A following work, "The Lake Street 'L'," takes the reader on a metaphorical, Dantean journey on a Chicago elevated train. The third and final theme dealing with narratives and parables tells of a soldier's pain-filled return from battle in "Kenny's Way of 1944." A following work, entitled "Refugees," paints a portrait of Polish immigrants and their travails in a new country.

The four stories concluding the anthology touch on widely differing subjects. The first tells about a college writing teacher's encounter with his religious skepticism in "My Friend Jesus." The second, "Big Blue," is a tale about boyhood pals on a summer adventure which turns tragic. A third, entitles "Chapel of Immortality," is about one man's quest for exiting his physical existence and finding a transcending level of being. A final story, "Look Homeward Asheville" (also the book's title) relates the events in the life of a boy growing up in Asheville during the years of The Great Depression. The tale takes place in the shadow of the Thomas Wolfe legacy.