Michael Guinn was born in the small east Texas town of Jacksonville where he lived with his 4 brothers, Charles Jr., Maurice, Mark, and Derek. His mother and father were Mr. and Mrs. Charles and Evelene Guinn. His mother had 8 brothers; his father was the only child. Mom was raised in Cherokee county and did not finish high school. Father finished high school and played semi pro basketball and worked in construction. As long as I can remember my father has been a hustler. My mother, to this day, is still employed and always has worked at some job, whether it be construction, maid, housekeeper, care taker. Dad gave up on corporate America and engaged in a series of odd jobs. Chickens, Fire Wood, Scrap Metal etc..., all were a front for his real money maker-MARIJUANA. My family was as dysfunctional as they come. My parents sent me packing at 13 to live with my grandmother, who had already suffered two strokes as a result of us bad ass kids. We had no structure and an abusive father who seemed to get off on how he "disciplined" us. Wire hangers, switches, extension cords were the norm. At age nine, I suffered third degree burns to my arms, and since we had no insurance, I have scars, internally and externally. I graduated from high school and enrolled in a small junior college in Ranger, Texas. There were more skunks than people and lots of racism. I left there the next semester and enrolled in Wharton Country Jr. College in Wharton, Texas. I ran track, pole vaulted, did well in high school, and excelled in college. After graduating from Wharton County, I received a scholarship to Lamar University in Beaumont. There I lived with a girl named Felicia Albin Callous. She had rescued me from myself and was my first kiss, first uhhmm, well you know. I left Lamar my senior year and enrolled in the U.S. Army and was stationed at Fort Jackson in Columbia SC. I met a girl named Susan Elece Sanders, who was another good woman I let, slip away. I came home and went to work for Rusk State Mental Hospital in east Texas. I met Patty Johnson, the mother of my oldest son, Gerald, who is stationed in San Diego in the U.S. Navy. Then I went back to school at Stephen F. Austin, met my son's mother there and graduated and went to work for CPS. I left east Texas and moved to Dallas where I began writing poetry. I started the Fort Worth Poetry Slams. And then after 6 years of CPS I left that job and Texas and moved to Sacramento. There I excelled in acting and spoken-word poetry slams. After being shot twice in an attempted carjacking, I moved back to Arlington and the rest of my story is woven in the poems you'll read in this book. Enjoy my life's work and my life as a man struggling to be a MAN in a world of colorful distractions. Welcome to Crying In Colors...The Poemography of A Man! "I simply love the beautiful torment of a springtime tornado. It's desperate struggle to survive. The way it brutally spins itself in circles for acceptance not knowing that it's destroying lives trying to sustain its own. And I've never felt closer to Mother Nature than right now...": Mike Guinn