Poems Can Be An Emotional Release

As stated in my last blog, I wrote a lot of poems between the age of nine and to around my mid-twenties. I find it interesting that nearly every new writer I have spoken with has told me they started out writing poems. I think that’s pretty common. You get the writing bug, but you don’t think you can write a whole book, so you go to the next best thing – writing poems. 

The Beginning

Long before I ever dreamed of writing a real book, I wrote poems. In fact, I wrote my first poem in the second grade. Over the years I wrote many poems, and our local newspaper published many of them until they stopped that feature. I never did anything else with these poems, and they've sat in a folder for years, some of them close to 50 years. When I read through them, I am surprised by how some of them reflect feelings that are still pertinent for today’s times.

What is most interesting is that my first poem was romantic. And I was just a little girl of about 8. I wrote my first little story (a school assignment) in fourth grade, when I was 10 years old, and it, too was romantic! It was called (don’t laugh) “Mr. and Mrs. Quack.” It was about a pair of ducks (male and female) who were flying south together. The male duck was shot down by a hunter. Mrs. Quack was so sad. I don’t even remember if Mr. Quack lived. I think he did and they got back together. I have that story somewhere. If I find it, I will post it just for fun!