I certainly derived my skills as a prose writer from my scrutiny of poetry and of the individual word. But schools don't do things like that anymore - tracking words down to their roots.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I wrote things for the school's newspaper, and - like all teenagers - I dabbled in poetry.
I started writing poems, and when I first tried prose, I wrote bad articles and essays and columns, and I didn't have a handle on it. I didn't go to a school that really taught you how to write that stuff.
Even though I was a reluctant reader in junior high and high school, I found myself writing poems in the back of class.
I was a good student, but a speech impediment was causing problems. One of my teachers decided that I couldn't pronounce certain words at all. She thought that if I wrote something, I would use words I could pronounce. I began writing little poems. I began to write short stories, too.
I had been writing poems and stories since I learned to make letters. I had placed poems in a hardcover anthology at the age of 6. And I knew more big words than anyone else in the 10th grade.
Most people who write and publish poetry teach or do something else.
I definitely used to write a lot at school. Comic poetry and drawings about people.
Teaching writing over the years intrudes on your own writing in important ways, taking away some of the excitement of poetry.
I taught high school English for 24 years. I always teach my students to appreciate the beauty of language and to write poetically.
For example, many colleges in their writing programs teach some of my work.
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