Crunching Gravel

A professor at the University of California and poet, Peters is contributing editor to the American Poetry Review. With essay-like entries in this memoir, he immerses the reader in the life of his family in the 1930s, struggling for survival on a small farm in Wisconsin. He recalls the hard labor and meager material rewards of those Depression years. But if his parents and siblings were deprived, humiliated by handouts from county welfare, they had their joys. It was a house filled with love and fun, with his father's music making on violin, mandolin and accordion. There were holiday celebrations shared with the community and, for Peters, the exuberance of rough horseplay with other boys. For the author as well was the joy of discovering his talents as a poet. Completing the book the reader says amen to Peters's conviction: ""The intervals of our lives . . . no matter how brief, are glorious.'' (April)