I'm not
sure if I've already written about this. A couple years ago I was
shopping for used books at the St. Vincent Dupaul across the street
from where I lived in Kenmore. There I stumbled upon the least expected
book I already had: The Fall of 2002 Northwest Celebration of Young
Poets collection, which featured the first poem I ever wrote for submission.
The poem was "Cry of the Wind", something I'd written in a bad state
to help me get over the loss of my romantic interest at the time, Sandra.
The remarkable thing about this is I wrote my first published poem in one sitting,
without any editing. It was simply typed up and submitted online, taking
about 30 minutes from start to finish. It's probably the greatest
achievement of my life so far, other than becoming a father; certainly
career-wise.
To find
that book 15 years later in a shop ready for sale, where someone could
potentially spend their cold hard cash on something I'd written, was a
monumental feeling- a true sign of something I could be successful
at. In hindsight that event should have been my calling.
Alas, I was too bogged down by depression and uncertainty to realize the
opportunity when it spat on my shoes. I should have studied English in
college, not those dead-end sciences. It would have helped me
hone my writing skills at an earlier time, making me a better writer and perhaps
even more prolific than I am today. Oh well, the past can never be
reconstructed, and that's probably a good thing.
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