Alum Bill Minor's Poetry Draws from Without and Within

MONTEREY HERALD -- He began writing poetry as a graduate student at San Francisco State University and released his first book, “Pacific Grove” — which included woodcut prints — in 1974. “Gypsy Wisdom” is his seventh book of poetry. His writing draws on two main influences: popular songs by the likes of Cole Porter, Matt Dennis and Nat King Cole, and his father’s “folk speech,” a remnant of his Southern heritage. “I’d grow up hearing things, like, if someone was unscrupulous: ‘Bill, that fella, he’s like a one-legged man at a kicking contest,’” Minor said. “One of my favorites was, ‘He’s so crooked he could crawl up into a corkscrew and sleep with great repose.’ “It was a house of metaphor.”