Rattan's short stories are filled with humor and positive observations of charming characters with penetrating insights that amuse and entertain the reader: The math teacher "As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more clearly, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folk of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) "Shall I tell you what I consider to be wrong? What I consider to be wrong is that most of the people in the Western Hemisphere are stark, staring mad, and the few people who recognize this are regarded as lunatics by all those stark, staring mad people." Ashley Montegue from remarks at the University of Wisconsin Symposium on "Alternative Futures for America" 1971. Sometimes deciphering the world for readers won't do. We must make or create the world for readers. How? I am almost never sure. Sometimes I have moments of clarity, but a writer may create a world that we come to live in and know in our everyday creation of our lives. Minuscule creation is probably enough. Collected Prose of a Poet Cleatus Rattan Read these offerings. You will not forget them. Jim Linebarger, Emeritus Professor of English and Poet in Residence at the University of North Texas, is the author of Five Faces and The Poetry of John Berryman.