I’ve been a reader for many, many – many – years now, of course. And over the course of those years, I have also been a writer. I learned to write by reading the writing of others, I think. Words, and the sentences that hold words together, come easily to me. That particular gift allowed me to be a preacher, also. I loved reading and studying the scriptures, and over the years, I’d developed my own rhythm, a rhythm that formed the outline of my week for many years.
And I have written poetry since the days I watched my teachers carefully, studying their manners and idiosyncrasies carefully. I was a careful child, and I took that care to my studies. I faithfully memorized the poems of the great American poets in Miss Ross’ English class at Peckham Junior High School. Miss Ross gave me a great gift with her old-fashioned manner of teaching. I remember so little about her; she was an old-fashioned teacher who wore a navy blue, old-fashioned dress that was covered in little white dots, a dress that covered her knees, modestly. Was her name really Betsy Ross? I don’t know, although that’s the name I’ve carried with me all these years. I was sure she had her hair done at a beauty parlor every week. That’s how it looked to me, with my trained eye!
Every week, I studied a poet’s life and poems, and over the course of the semester I put together a book of my own, a three ringed folder with poems carefully written in my own hand, and pictures to visually bring the poems to life. I cut the pictures out of the pages of my mother’s women’s magazines. I wish I had those folders now. Those pages of poems were a treasure in my life.
The poems, the lives of the poets, the world that books and reading opened to me have been a priceless gift to my life.
But the poems that I have written and collected – not carefully, but faithfully – have formed the book that my beloved husband, Jeff, encouraged me to have printed. I am a published poet now! That’s an identity I find I will have to grow into. Like the day Jeff’s first published book appeared at our house, he and I sat down and looked over the small printed volume of my own poetry, Moments (Balboa Press, 2026).
And I have survived my first reading! Carefully planned and executed, I read aloud to a group of other humans selected poems from my collection. The room – the Edwards Room at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church, the church where I had retired from as Pastor in 2014 after a 16 year stint (not bad for a Methodist!). There was a gathered group of people, mostly folks I know, a few I did not know. A woman I’d helped with a family matter a few years after my retirement joined the group. The pastor, Sunae, had made sure a flyer had been included in each Sunday’s bulletin.
And so, I am a published poet, and I am a poet who has survived a public reading. I am grateful. A gathering of friends, of beloved folks from many years in my life, colleagues, former parishioners, and even a man I did not know arrived to sit for an hour of poetry reading! So many of my poems, many written on scraps of paper and filed away in a manila file – these many years – were now properly printed and presented for public view. The pastor and a few faithful helpers set out a nice table of simple food for after the reading. A friend brought her dog and generously agreed to handle the selling of the books, of my book, which I signed for the waiting admirers.
And so I expect that a small part of me will have to take on a new – another – identity: published poet. I’m proud that a photo of mine graces the cover. I was delighted to see who showed up to hear me read, some folks I had forgotten would be interested at all.
Now, that day is in the past. I’ve had my collection of poems published – I’m a published poet now – and I’ve had a reading. I’m out there.
