adminDid you know that April is national poetry month? Personally, I have probably written poetry every month of the year sometime or another ever since I started writing it over 60 years ago. Yes, I have written poetry most of my life, and it has always been a sort of emotional, creative therapy for me. When I was young, I wrote poems about nature and the joys and fears of childhood. Here’s a snippet from a poem about swinging: “I can swing so high, I can touch the sky,
and there’s only God and me.”
Out of the angst of adolescence grew, “I am an unknown entity, drowning in a nameless sea. How can I reach out my hand to you when it doesn’t belong to me?”
When writing about love, “What greater plane can man reach than to be loved so greatly by one mortal being? Therein lies all the smiles of God and all the stars of heaven.”
With the demands of marriage, motherhood, and a teaching career, I didn’t write as much poetry. I do remember, “I dress the boys in blue and the girls in ruffles. But somewhere, somehow, I got lost in the shuffle.”
With retirement came more time to think and create. Several of my poems have received awards. Yesterday I learned my poem, “Shades of Oklahoma” received second place in a poetry contest sponsored by the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry in Locust Grove. I am going there Saturday to read my poem and receive an award. You really should visit this wonderful museum whenever you can. Happy Poetry month!
