When I was growing up in SW Pennsylvania, poetry was nursery rhymes, children’s songs, and crude limericks told around the playground or in the hallway at school.  In middle school and high school, I became acquainted with Lord Byron, William Wordsworth, and Emily Dickenson.  My eleventh grade English teachers even went so far as to teach us about meter and forced us to memorize several of the classics.  I thought Edgar Allen Poe was worthy of my consideration, maybe because his poems had a certain eclectic quality.  I also thought Shakespeare was quite eloquent, as his lines flowed like rivers through all manner of landscapes and climates.

I always wanted to be a writer; I’m sure of that.  I can remember playing on my Mom’s clunky, old black typewriter.  It wasn’t electric, and I remember banging away at the keys to make it type.  I was always fascinated by how the black ribbon edged almost imperceptibly forward from one spool to the next.  Of course, it was all gibberish; but it was great fun.  I always pictured myself as a journalist breaking some big story that exposed corrupt politicians or crime bosses.  Perhaps, a great novel or short story would pour onto the paper as I tapped away on the typewriter or scribbled on the paper with my pencil.  Later in life, I did manager to publish one novel, Ones Such as These, which is another story; but serious poetry?

The thing about poetry is that it is so personal.  I didn’t start out writing poetry with publishing in mind; that came later when I looked at what I had created.  Writing poetry for me has been, in part, a form of therapy.  Depression is an ugly thing; and, thinking back, I’ve probably had it all of my life:  prolonged negative feelings; irritability; anger; recklessness sleeplessness; isolationism; decreased sex drive; impulsive eating, which led to weight gain; near-debilitating self-loathing; and suicidal thoughts that haunted my waking hours.  I didn’t seek treatment until I was in my 30’s, which my first wife insisted on.  But by then, the damage was done and we separated a few years later.

Writing poetry allows me to discipline the thoughts and emotions that sway me one way or the other.  Through sharing my poems with others, I achieve a connection with the audience and become part of their community.  Poetry also provides for me a way to communicate with the source of my hope, God.  This makes sense because the songs of the Native Americans, the chants sung in a drafty monastery, and even the Psalms of the Bible are a form of poetry.  Imagine how David poured out his heart to God with each line of a Psalm or consider the prayers lifted by the Plaines Indians to their deities as they sang their songs in the twilight of a summer’s night.  Poetry expresses our bonds as community and our relationship with God.