<p><br></p><p>I emulate them not I forge not their styles I aspire to their reputations</p><p>I envy their imprimaturs their prose more esoteric than I could xerox</p><p>their command of the lexicon incomparable their knowledge of other</p><p>tongues impeccable their verbosity at times unbearable they are my</p><p>heroes in literature.</p><p><br></p><p>They are Hemingway Dos Passos Caldwell Fitzgerald Pound Eliot</p><p>Twain Salinger Wolfe and even Stein and Faulkner. They are no more</p><p>except on library shelves classrooms bonfires and in my heart.</p>