Op-Ed: How My Love of Writing Began

All of this started back when I was sitting in my high school English class back 1995. We were studying poetry and were given the assignment of writing a series of poems. Now, as a product of our environment in a small town in rural Pennsylvania my friends and I did not take the assignment seriously. To us poetry was some dead form of literature. Something that smug, beret-wearing people that hung out in smoke filled coffee shops would recite to feel “artsy”. In short, it seemed like such a foreign activity that my friends and I could not relate and we were not enthused. The assignment we were given was to write three poems by the end of the week. So I did what any other young, male in high school would do given such a task: I pushed it off until the night before it was due.

I had to force myself to sit down and try to write…something…anything! I sat staring at the blank paper for minutes which turned into about an hour trying to force an idea. I couldn’t think of a thing to write about. That’s when I realized my issue. I was trying to force myself to write about a “thing”. Everything I thought to write was an object. There was no emotion or meaning about an object. I looked at subject that was more personal: me, my emotions and what I was going through in life.

When I put the pen to paper everything started to just flow. I had never written like this before in my life. Words and sentences poured out as easily as liquor from a bottle and it was just as intoxicating. Now, granted, looking back on those three poems they were very cringe inducing. They were, after all, written by a moody teenager. The thing is that I was bitten by the writing bug and I never stopped. It got to the point later in my life that would get a line or phrase in my head and I had to write it down to save it for a later time to expand upon.

This obsession with writing has helped me in so many more ways than just simply poetry. It has helped me when I write anything from a resume to communicating more effectively when texting friends. Though I still cringe when I read my attempts at something “artful” it doesn’t deter me because it does help to get those emotions out as cliched as that sounds.

At the end of the day I am glad I can express myself in this way regardless if what I write is “good or bad”. I hope that anyone who reads any of the things I write provide insightful criticism and if they by chance enjoy what I write then even better.