Books: Weepin' & Wooin' With Rod McKuen

Once was a time,

in New York's jungle in a tree,

before I went into the world

in search of other kinds of love

nobody owned me but a cat named Sloopy.

Looking back

perhaps she's been

the only human thing

that ever gave back love to me.

Suppose you wrote these lines one night and instead of tearing them up the next morning took them to a publisher. What would happen? Surely, in the great, big, tough new world of black-and-blue humor, four-letter words, and agonizing alienation, the publisher would throw you out. But then again...