I wrote my first poem in the fourth grade. My teacher gave us an assignment just before Christmas break. Write an essay on something to do with the season. I wrote a poem entitled Snow. It took all of ten minutes. She had me stay after class and asked me straight out if I had actually written it or if it was from someone else’s work. By the time we got back from vacation, she and the music teacher had made it into a song. What’s more, they had the class sing it to the entire school! I was not amused.

Over the years I would occasionally jot down some ideas for poems, but I never really considered it much more than just a hobby-like doodling. It’s been over the past five years or so that I’ve been going after it whole-hog. The floodgates opened, my pen would not stop writing no matter how much I tried. Countless friends and family members told me to compile them all in book form and see what happens.

Here we go.