Bobby Joeif i should die before I wake...I don"t know if I believed in ghosts before Bobby Joe Lee had his strokethat big man we called Bull lying there all them years in that hospital roomwasn"t nothing they could do but wait and seeif he"d try to wake up or let it go he was like a lightning-struck treedidn"t even know it was gone alone in there, blind and lostuntil the next firestorm come to finish him offThe PBS-TV documentary on David Lee was entitled "The Pig Poet," and according to The Denver Post that sobriquet didn"t bother Utah"s poet Laureate: "I"ve rarely in my life been without a pig." Pigs, and the gentle-hearted redneck roustabout John, feature prominently in Lee"s narratives and are integral to what he calls his "aural agrarian saga." This saga, written over the past two decades, is also populated with some of the most authentically drawn characters since those of Mark Twain. Lee"s small-town universe is frequented by tragedy and near-tragedy, and transcendence most often arrives in the form of salvaged humor, whether ironic, self-depricating, or ribald."David Lee"s pig poems are the best thing to happen to animals in poetry since Kit Smart"s cat."-Thomas McGrath"Lee"s calculatedly simple narratives are wonderfully wrought. His is a welcome voice, neither academic nor urban."-BooklistAlso available by David LeeDavid Lee: A Listener"s Guide Reading from: A Legacy of Shadows and News from Down to the CaféAudio CD $12.00, 1-55659-137-3.