You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed,

for you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hello, and welcome to Bookworm.

I'm Michael Sulfurblat. Today's show is part of a series entitled Imaging the Us, an exploration of autobiographical writing, which is a collaboration between Bookworm and the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities. This collaboration looks at the relationship between autobiographical writings,

memory, and the articulation of an us. My guest today is Quincy Troop, an American poet who

lives in La Jolla. He's the author of five books of poetry, most recently one called Weather Report

from Harlem River Press.

A new collection, Avalanche, will be coming out from Coffee House Press in 1996.

He has the unusual distinction as well of being the co-author of the autobiography of Miles Davis.

Quincy, I wanted to begin by asking you, because your father was the second most famous catcher in the Negro leagues and you've been writing about him, what is the first thing you remember about your father?

The first thing I remember about my father is something I put in this memoir, is that we were coming around. I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri,

and my father came by, he had bought a new car, and he took my brother and I out for a ride.

And it was a great ride out into the countryside of St. Louis. And then when we came back,

I remember coming down Eastern Avenue, which has now been

renamed Martin Luther King. And I had been asleep for about maybe a mile or so. I'd kind of

falling asleep. I guess I'd been a low by the countryside and the riding of the wheels.

And we turned the corner to move into this little kind of place where we lived. And I thought we were there.

And I opened the door of the car and fell out and hit my head and knocked myself unconscious.

And I remember when I woke up about maybe five or six hours later, my father's face was over my face and he had all

this concern and tears and everything. He was kind of crying when he saw me wake up. And it's

...