Recently I said to my father, who is on the cusp of turning ninety, You should write down all the wisdom youve garnered in your long life so my brothers and I can learn as much as possible from you. My father pondered that for a minute and then said, Too late. I dont remember. A Grammar of Being is my effort to preemptively address this issue with my sons. Im a youthful sixty-something, but if Im going to say anything substantive to them, I can see that Id better say it now. Essentially, these are notes in the form of chain-linked poems, speculating on what it means to exist. What is being? How and why, can or should we make ourselves into persons? What kind of persons? Ive spent my entire life pondering such things, and I have no conclusion. None at all. I only have provisional insights of a thoroughly dubious nature. That, and a huge thankfulness for the process, accompanied by bouts of mild anguish. I love my sons more than I love myself, which is saying a lot. I wanted to say something to them. This is it. Perhaps it will be interesting to other folks as well.

Lewis Ashman is a graduate of Purdue University in philosophy. His novels Null And Void and October and his three poetry books Possible Worlds, Love And Other Wrongs, and April Fool, have been published by Xlibris.