Finding my way to Poetry

Evey Day Poems asked the question: "How did you find your way to poetry?" I have read many fantastic poets and yet was still ambivalent to poetry until a genius Creative Writing teacher opened my eyes. Here is the poem that I wrote for her which was included in our Poetry Unit Portfolio.

Ode to a Brilliant Blonde


My life has now been changed
because I have been inspired to
put down my words in a new way.
Words are no longer just to read but a
picture, a sound, a taste or a touch.

The clicking of black keys with white letters

has always been my friend, but now the click
means that I can get frustration, sadness, happiness
connected through the snapping of brain waves
on to the page through a more imaginative process.

I have all this thanks to a brilliant blonde.

In the beginning I was afraid to put
down the words, over thinking placement,
syntax and rhyme, no more. I find myself
writing in the wee hours when the owls
are awake, right before the yellow orb rises into the
grey blue sky or during a climb when the moon is
at its hungriest.

I think it might drive my tow-headed teenagers batty
writing down things or speaking into my
phone recorder to remember ideas
I have observed that I would like to write about.

They tell me writing is now like a drug,
I can never calm the fix.
Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, I just know

That I HAVE to write.

Images dance for me where ever I reside
no longer do I look at things critically
without seeing a more beautiful, creative
side to the view

Football players turn into
soldiers; dancers turn into pirouetting windmills;
flowers turn into talking, Victorian women.
life is like Wonderland and the outlook divine,
i’m looking forward to next semester
when we learn to rhyme.