This is a book of poems all of which respond to other words, written or spoken. But these are also poems of family and romance, with a smattering of social observations and comments. There is an afterword written just for the ebook. 'Words Begat Words' is the spiritual successor to 'Hate Mail & Love Letters' (2001). Both books are by award-winning poet Herb Kauderer. A small caution: there is a profanity used for humorous purposes.

Herb Kauderer is a retired factory worker/truck driver who grew up to be a tenured associate professor of English at Hilbert College with a PhD, an MFA, and a lot of other degrees. He has written film including the 2013 feature film Beyond the Mainstream, drama, non-fiction, and plenty of short fiction, but is most noted for his poetry.

His writing has won the Critters Readers’ Award (2021), Asimov’s Readers’ Award (2017), the Ewaipanoma Sonnet Contest (2008), the WorldCon Poetry Slam (1998), and the Sycamore Award (1992) and received a 3rd place Dwarf Star Award (2021), a 3rd place Elgin Award (2020), and placed 4th in the Analog AnLab Readers Awards (2017), as well as receiving honorable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror (1996).

He is assistant editor (slush reader) at Amazing Stories, co-edits SpecPo Reviews, was the poetry editor of the 2021 Parsec Ink anthology Triangulations: Habitats, and has edited another handful of books. His previous chapbook is Distilled from Water

One of Herb’s favorite hobbies is getting physicists drunk so he can understand them. More about him and his writing can be found at HerbKauderer.com.