I lived through those books. They fed my imagination and took me to places that in reality I'd never see. I had a rich life through my books, which only grew as I discovered more advanced literature.
I started writing my own poems and stories while in grade school. In junior high, I added song writing to the mix. Nothing professional sounding, but it was an outlet for me to express things that otherwise would have been left pent up inside.
Here is one of my favorite poems I wrote so long ago.
Sitting on a mountain top
watching all the children play.
You think they would find time to stop
and try a different way.
'Round a 'round they go again,
playing their different games.
They say we're individuals
but the pattern is the same...
From childhood we begin to grow,
learning with each new day;
together destined to grow old
until we fade away.
Why then are we given life -
to have it taken when we die?
Or so someone else might have a chance
to do what we wouldn't try.
I was a deep thinker, sometimes bordering on morose. In late junior high, I discovered a writer whose poetry spoke to me - one poem in particular:
ALONE
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
Edgar Allan Poe
Now, add my born-again Christianity to the mix...
Do you understand the struggles I've gone through trying to decide
what direction to take my manuscript--what genre I will write?
what direction to take my manuscript--what genre I will write?
There's a lot of stuff between my ears.
Who knows what the finished product will be.
Many of the things I wrote were happy, bouncy pieces, but more of them were a mixture of rejection, pain and questions. I guess it was my own kind of therapy. Maybe writing has kept me from going crazy.
I have a book inside me and it needs to come out...
