Basic Training: A Selection of Poems

Paul J. Schaefer was born on dairy farm in Wisconsin at the peak of the Great Depression in November of 1933. After 12 years of parochial school he attended Marquette University where he obtained a bachelors degree with majors in History and English. He was drafted into the US Army and spent two years at Fort Riley Kansas. After discharge he moved to New York where he worked for Western Publishing Company, first in Poughkeepsie NY and then in New York City. He married Gale Quinn Schaefer, fathered two children, Sarah and Emily, and has three grandchildren, Abbie, Sophie and Franny. Having retired, Paul volunteered for twenty years in the Bard Prison Initiative, helping to bring college education to incarcerated persons. He lives in Rhinebeck, New York in the Hudson Valley.