I have an AuthorsDen account that I hop into once in a while. I pay for Gold membership, so you would think I’d be there more often. Thing is, I have these social anxiety issues . . . yes, and they carry over to online forums, chat rooms, and the like. So, I post once in a while, get overwhelmed by the sheer size of the place, and log out . . .
Just the same way as I go to a store, sit in the car a while, and then slowly drive back home without getting what I came for. Perhaps you can maybe understand why promoting and marketing my work is difficult for me! A very overwhelming process, indeed!
Anyway, I have published on there and at one other such site–Writing.com, some poems. Only on those sites are they.
Until now.
Why? Because I’ve never considered myself a poet. So, I’m going to bring a couple of them here.
I went with the belief that I was not cut out to be a poet until I was forced–yes, forced–to take a poetry class at a writer’s workshop I signed up for years ago. Bridging the Years Writers Workshop. Signed up too late to get one of the classes I really wanted to take, so they tucked me into this poetry class. Didn’t find it out until I got to the workshop that morning. Yeah, I wasn’t a happy camper, but I sucked it up and didn’t make a fuss over it.
To that date, I’d only written one poem I was proud of. It’s a romantic piece so I won’t be posting it here. One poem, though, didn’t a poet make, so I thought. Was a fluke, just a lucky coincidence that I came up with it. Of course, it took me a while to perfect it. But, hey . . . I’m not a true poet, right?
So there I sat at our round table with Real poets, young and old, and hoped I could get through this thing without anyone knowing I really shouldn’t be there. Alas, it was not to be! Our instructor, whose name I’ll remember after I post this–if we’re lucky–gave us a challenge. We were to take pen and pad in hand and walk through the building, jotting notes on what we observed, heard, smelled and even touched.
And write a poem about it.
And read it aloud to the class . . .
I warned them all, right then and there that I was NOT a poet, so don’t expect much. On that note, we all ventured out of the room into the halls of the Fort William Henry Conference Building. I’ll let you read the poem to discover a little of what we/I experienced that afternoon.
Once we’d been properly inspired we were free to head back to our room and get to creating our rhymes . . . or whatever type poem we were comfortable with. I rhyme. Of course, when it came time to read what we’d written thus far, I let everyone else go before me, hoping the class would end before it was my turn.
But . . . no . . . I was not let off so easily!
So, resigned to it, I read my little creation, which actually ended up being rather a long one. Although I wasn’t particularly pleased with what I’d come up with, I read it with feeling. At the end of it, everyone just sat there in silence. Didn’t quite know what to think at that moment. Was pretty sure I’d proved my point. I had no business writing poetry! After a few seconds, one of my writing friends slapped my arm, and said accusingly, “You lied to us! You ARE a poet!”
The rest of the class enthusiastically agreed with her, and the instructor encouraged me to keep at it. I was a poet, and I should know it! Well, who’d’a thunk?! Once in a while, I am a poet!
So, give me a little bit to get them pretty on the page, and if you’re so inclined, you can let me know what you think. I’ll post some of the feedback I’ve so far gotten for them. One review quite recently. From a poet . . .!