As someone who writes poetry and finds himself interested in reading a lot of the genre, I found myself very captivated by different poets that were alive at many different periods and places in the world.
I learned in a creative writing class at the college that you should always read your preferred genre because it helps you gain an understanding of what it means to write in that genre. Poetry was always something that I found very enjoyable.
There were some poets like Ogden Nash who was very infamous for his light verse and his ability to find any word that rhymes with another one. There were some eras of poetry that I became interested in that were written by people who were very highly-educated, but took the time to write verses and publish many books of poetry.
Poetry, as far as I am concerned, became the genre that gave me the most joy. Fiction is great and everything, do not get me wrong, but I just love to read how many different people all view the same object. Poetry was also my way of expressing my feelings.
I wanted to be able to share that I thought the world of someone, and I remember you could say something like, “you are beautiful.” But as a poet, you would say something to the tune of, “you are my moon and my stars.”
I started writing poetry when I was seven years old. I was always very interested in positive expression. I wanted to write poetry and make certain connections with the way that I understood language at the time. I remember reading a lot of poetry and I wanted to be able to do what the greatest poets achieved.
I learned from a young age that writing poetry was also very important in shaping my imagination and gave me the ability to see words as more than just letters on a page. Poetry showed me that there is a hidden beauty behind the words that you use. I started reading more and more diverse poets because I wanted to learn how many different people viewed love and romance.
Poetry is something that gives me so much joy and I do not think I could ever imagine my life without it. I have been very grateful that God has introduced me to people at the University who also shared the love of poetry. I even found myself going to poetry nights at the local coffee-shop because I wanted to share the gift that I was given. I met some of my closest friends at these events. I want to thank them for helping me see the world as a beautiful place.
I have read almost three-hundred books of poetry over the years. I have been very grateful that I am able to attend a college where I can study writing. I may have started in the communication department, (because I wanted to be a radio personality) but I was going through my audit and decided to take an English course called “composition and rhetoric.” It sounded like a very challenging course, and I was interested in learning more about the different mechanics of writing.
This course changed my life, and I was very thankful that my professor made it enjoyable. I instantly changed my major to English, and I have been very happy being part of a department where I feel like we are a very close-knit group of students and professors. I knew that I wanted to bring back my love of writing that I had when I was younger and I have not stopped writing since. I think I have written something every day for the past ten years.
I am working on my fifth novel and I have a few poems that I am looking to work on and make into a collection. I am very thankful to all of my professors in the English Department because they all showed me that I was capable of doing amazing things with the English language. I consider myself to be a poet now because I have written close to one thousand poems in about twenty-five years.
The world of writing is a very interesting place because you write, (sometimes alone) and then you want to share what you wrote with everyone. It is a very interesting and multi-faceted passion. I know that, growing up, I had many different goals, and I am proud to say that I am achieving each one through my love of the written word.
I am always looking for new ways to express my emotions. I write some poems that rhyme and some that don’t. It is not something that is only one way of handling things. Every writer is different. The world is a very beautiful place and my goal is to make it more beautiful than how I found it. I can do that through my love of poetry and my love of the world of writing.
