The New Poetry Alive 2000

May 2000 Vol. 1 issue 1

DON'T SELL YOURSELF SHORT

I remember when I first started writing I had not written since graduating High School in 1977. I

can remember having like reading and writing but never really had put much effort into writing. I was pretty

much a typical High school student from a small town and writing poetry was not consid-ered a viable career

option even on a part time or hobby basis. I did spend a lot of time reading but it was more on the adventure

and fiction genre. As I grew older my interest in even reading had waned to the point I hardly ever even picked

up a book. That was at least until 2 years ago when I wrote my first poem.

Being an average working person my work had taken me out of town for work on a parking lot and I was

staying in a motel room. I had finished work for that day and my roommate and I were just sitting in the motel room.

I had recently met an author online and she had shown me several of her poems; which I had liked. Being bored and not

wanting to watch what was on the television I had decided to just for something to do to try and write a poem. After

writing that poem I had shown it to my roommate who thought it was pretty good. I wasn't convinced but decided that upon

my return home I would show it to the author I had met and ask her opinion. She also thought it was pretty good. I was

still unconvinced but agreed to place it on her message board for comments where it received several more good ratings.

In the meantime my interest having been rekindled in writing I began to write more for my own enjoyment then anything

else. I posted another poem or two at her board and received more positive comments from other writers. At this time I happened

to come across an advertisement in the Sunday Paper for a poetry contest being run at Poetry.com and decided to put my first poem

to the test. I really believe that I did it more to try and prove the people wrong who kept telling me my writing was good. I

completely expected to get a rejection of my poem. I continued to write though and continued to post my poems at various message

boards I found in abundance on the internet and they continued to get good feedback along with some positive critique from other

writers that I tried to put into my writing.

I was quite amazed a few weeks later when I received a response fromThe contest informing me that my poem, the first one I

had written had been accepted into the contest along with a request for permission to publish it in their upcoming anthology titled

"Of Time and Tide". I have continued to write since and have had several more of my poems published in various anthologies, an online

chapbook, at various online poetry journals, homepages, and message boards, and one poem also published in a private book in Great Britain.

My confidence has grown thanks to the early encouragement of many friends and authors who have also become considered good friends today.

My writing has also led to my publishing this online journal and my upcoming homepages on the internet and also the reason for writing

this first article for The New Poetry Alive 2000.

If you are just starting out or even if you are just thinking about it PLEASE Don't sell yourself short and give up or allow

yourself to believe as I did at first. That your writing is just not good enough because as I found out that thought or belief can stop

you before you even begin and you may be as lucky as I have been and have the talent to have your poetry published and enjoyed by others

who share this same LOVE of poetry that so many of us do. And remember one more thing; the best poetry you can write comes from the heart

and the soul and Maybe it comes from YOUR HEART AND SOUL.

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