Why Poetry?

My father and I were eating supper a few nights ago and the conversation turned to poetry. He told me that he is surprised that two of his three children are into poetry to the extent that we write. My younger brother and I have both been writing for years and have enough to publish, but neither of us have had the opportunity to do so. I am published in a couple of anthologies through the International Library of Poetry, but it is of course not a paying gig. Anyway, through the years people have asked me why I became so interested in poetry and also who my favorite poets are. Well, I am going to attempt to answer both questions here.

Some of my favorite poets are e.e. cummings, Robert Frost, William Shakespeare, and Walt Whitman. I am sure there are others, but these are the poets who left impressions on me.

Why I became interested in poetry is more complex. In high school English we were given an assignment to write a poem. My poem was one of the better ones in the class, at least according to the teacher, and I found it to be a way to be creative - as I had not really found an outlet for creativity with the exception of band. My senior year of high school, the English teacher gave out awards to her students for various achievements. They were homemade awards on construction paper. Nothing fancy yet her way to show how proud she was. She gave me the "Poet Award". Here is the very first poem that I wrote (sophomore year):

War

Boom...
a sudden, unexpected bomb explodes
wounding people everywhere
among the trees
the streets, the yards
many wounded, few survivors.

Soldiers come in for a counter-attack
hoping to see the light of day
never knowing, always hoping.

War, what a word
always full of sorrow and despair
for people think that war is bad.

Sometimes it's bad
seldom good.

Look at beautiful America
we were freed
from Britain and the Queen
the American Revolution
and George Washington
saved us all from going under.

Let's all be jubilant
Let's all be free
come sing "America the Beautiful"
for you, for me.

spring, 1988