Cornfields, Cottonwoods, Seagulls, and Sermons: Growing Up in Nebraska

How does driving a tractor at age five, irrigating corn, and reading a cartoon book about anatomy in a three-shelf-library one-room country school prepare one to become a physician? In the poems of Cornfields, Cottonwoods, Seagulls, and Sermons, poet-physician Joseph Gascho reflects on such questions. "In the tradition of Seamus Heaney, these poems trace the arc of a life at once humble and grand--a boy coming of age against the backdrop of a land whose rhythms of work and worship remain to...