Reading

Thinking back to when I actually started writing poetry had to be in the junior high years of my life. I don’t distinctly remember reading poetry outside of what school had assigned for me to read, however, some of my earliest memories are sitting with my parents on my bed reading a book before bedtime. It was the routine to brush our teeth, put on pajamas, and pick out a book to read together. I think that is where my love for literature really started; not only because I love to read and I love unfolding stories in my head, but because it is associated with such an intimate and crucial part of my childhood.

I remember being in first grade or so, sitting on the coffee table in the living room (I always rejected chairs for some reason) and reading “Green Eggs and Ham” over and over to my parents making dinner in the kitchen. I will say I definitely did not pick up a poetry book as a young child and immediately know that poetry is what I wanted to do. It was my early beginning of reading which developed into reading multiple books a month, then writing epilogues to some of my favorites, then discovering poetry and already having the drive to want to understand what I was reading. I had written in my last blog post that my source of poetry really comes from my childhood memories and that I owe a lot of my inspirations to my parents, something I think still reigns true here as well.

2 Replies to “Reading”

  1. I think sourcing poetry from childhood is so important, especially if we’ve never addressed it in our lifetime. I also really want to read a poem you write on rejecting chairs! I feel like you can link it to parts of your childhood and/or adulthood and it would be such a treasure!

  2. Great image of reading and re-reading Green Eggs and Ham! I think there might be something not only to the sound of that book but to its nonsense and, strangely, narrative, that might be compelling for young readers but also for older readers. Which makes me wonder why it’s hard to allow nonsense or strangeness in poems – so much of the poetry we begin reading is quite eccentric in its relationhship to sense…

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