When 1,200-or-so runners take to Woodstock Avenue on Saturday morning, observers may hear little more than the muffled thud of shoe soles on pavement. But there will also be a cacophony unheard by most, crashing, strumming and thumping with every step.

There is something unique about humans, something that transcends opposable thumbs or the creation of art. Apparently, there is within us a gene that makes us sit down and write our life stories in book form. Thousands of them, big and small, are published every year. And so it goes with yet another: poet Paul Guest's memoir One More Theory About Happiness.

Maybe it’s the accent — he was born in an “itty bitty” English village that no longer exists and then moved to Australia in his 20s. It might be his hands, which are always flying and pointing and clapping to explain the points of his many captivating stories. More than anything, it’s likely the vivid, captivating stories themselves about his extraordinary life experiences.

Occasional, devotional and sentimental poems are popular mainstays of American poetry: Poems created for a particular occasion like a graduation, or a moment of enlightenment; poems to the glory of God and poems that express what the heart feels.