Freddy Bosco is part pit bull, part poet.

He's had to be. The words come easy. But selling the words is hard, and that's where the pit bull part comes in.

Bosco wouldn't let go of his desire to have his book of poems in print. It finally happened.

"It took me one year to write and 15 years to sell," he said. "It's about a guy who lives in a boarding home."

Neurotic Meditation: the Spiritual Journal of Chauncey Farnsworth IV (100 pp., www.PublishAmerica.com, $16.95, plus shipping) is also available on Amazon.com. And it's not for guys who listen to talk radio so they don't have to think.

The poems will make you scratch your head. "It's sort of autobiographical," Bosco said.

Bosco, 60, showed a talent for writing early on. He published the Elm Street News when he was 8. "It cost 5 cents to read. But you had to give it back because we only printed one copy," Bosco said. "We made 85 cents, which in the early '50s was pretty good money for a kid."

Bosco moved from Denver to Wheat Ridge, then back to Denver. He so loves the city that he applied for and was appointed Denver's poet laureate under Mayor Federico Pena.

He said he wanted the job because "I wanted to write poems for the city that has meant so much to me."

He got the appointment. He wrote a few poems, "but nothing ever happened," he said.

In addition to his latest book, Bosco has written and published 12 other books of poems and a novella.

"I have been published in Rolling Stone, Harper's, the New Yorker and Reader's Digest plus a couple of Little, Brown anthologies," he said. "And twice I won first prize in the old Denver Voice Poetry of the Streets contest."

He writes a column for free for the Denver Daily News.

"At first I was paid," he said. "Then they said I could write for free or not write at all."

Either way, he has overcome more painful obstacles in his life.

He said he is "schizo-affected," which medication helps, but also gives him a Parkinson's-like side effect of trembling hands.

He found out the hard way he needed help when he was living on the streets in Juarez, Mexico.

"I was almost killed," he said. "I was robbed and beaten."

He made his way to a hospital in El Paso, Texas. Doctors patched him up, other hospital personnel put him on a plane to Denver. He ended up in a group home for 13 years before moving out on his own to a place in Capitol Hill.

"It's hospitable to people who are a little bit different," he said.

Bosco acknowledges he has faults, though he has worked to make things right.

"I've made messes and mistakes in my life," he said. "All I can say is I've apologized and tried to clean up after myself."

So his book of poetry is about faults and forgiveness, heartache and hope. And one word from the title has also become a way of life - meditating.

"I call it practicing, practicing knowledge - with a capital K," he said.