Act One

I've been writing poetry since I first read a poem. The earliest account I have of my involvement in poetry is writing a poem on my family's first Mac that didn't have a printer or the internet. It was black and white and you could carry the computer with one hand. I think I was only halfway through elementary school when I wrote a poem for my mother's birthday called "My Mother Is Still Pretty Young."

There was only rhyme and no reason to the poem. The lines in each verse had nothing to do with the last line, which was also the title of the poem. But I remember thinking how much fun I had writing it.

Now, a good set of years later, I'm still writing poems. And hopefully, they're more complex these days.

But the poems just sit and gather dust in various stashes in my bedroom, closet, garage, car and desk. There's also a hefty and heavy portion just sitting inside my computer.

Why haven't I ever sent them into poetry magazines?

Well, probably the same reason most poets don't send out their work: they just don't think about it or they put it off.

Sure, many don't have the confidence, but even when they consider their poems frail, they still think about people reading them. They'd like to see how far their work can go, what they can accomplish, what people with working eyes that aren't friends or family think of their creative outlets. Otherwise, the poems just sit there and do nothing.

So I've decided to start sending out poetry. I mean, why not?

And I've decided to keep a blog about it for several reasons:

1) so everyone can see how I went about this and succeeded or failed, so that they may choose a similar or varying path when sending out their own work

2) to keep track of my rejection or acceptance letters

3) to motivate me to keep trying relentlessly

Let's see what comes about.