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I wrote my first poem when I
was a slightly out of control eighteen year old sophomore at
Ohio University in Athens, Ohio in 1977. I was bored one
evening, so I went to see a movie with a couple friends. After
the movie, I told them to go on back to the dorm without me. I laid
on a park bench and stared into a beautifully clear, fall night sky. I
saw a shooting star and felt so insignificant. As I walked
back to my room, words just started filling my head. I wrote
“Child of the World” in about twenty minutes. It came out just
like it sounds.
I felt like I was at the
emotional bottom of the barrel and had somehow pulled myself back up
with my own words. Wow, what an exhilarating ride. The
poem wasn’t a masterpiece, but the feeling it gave me was like
nothing I’d ever known. Almost every poem I’ve written since
then has come to me like that first one. It’s like they are
already out there and I’m a receiver that picks up the signals and
translates the message. I expect every poem I write to be my
last and I always ask myself, "what kind of swansong would this poem
be?". Same said, I never know when or if I'll be done
with this website.
I never really set out to write even
the first poem. Nonetheless, they are
all real pieces of my life. If this never gets wide circulation, at
least I’ll be able to pass down my life to my children … beauty,
warts, glory, shame, and all.
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