Let this poetic journey begin

I'm not going to go into too much detail about myself and my background at this point. To keep it simple, I am a mechanical engineer who happens to teach in a high school. I try to impart the knowledge I have learned about my industry to the future engineers of the world.  I try to stay up on all of the latest technologies available and learn from the way things were done in the past.

 

When I was in high school, I hated reading. Not because the books they assigned sucked or anything, but it just turns out that I am a slow reader. When the teachers would make reading assignments and I would have to read 70 pages in a night, I was in real trouble. Back then I could read maybe three pages before I fell asleep. It must be something about moving my eyes back and forth in the repetitive motion or something.  

 

After high school, I was having trouble falling asleep on a regular basis and I remembered from my high school experience that reading puts me to sleep. So I got this brilliant idea of going to the local book store and dropping $15 on a new book. I decided that if I was going to read a book it was going to be a best seller, so I selected John Grisham's The Client. Turns out, I loved the book. I read the whole book in about 3 days and I came to the realization that reading is fun, as long as it interests me. Now I read all of the time. I still read slowly, but I usually have a book that I am reading, I'm an avid scripture reader and I read Popular Science, Discover Magazine, and Mother Earth News from cover to cover each month.

 

Through a series of events my friend, Sharon Krasny, suggested that I should start writing poetry. She thought I would be interested in the kind of poetry that has hidden meanings. At first I thought (and may have even said), "As if I need something else to do." But on my drive home, I turned off the radio and started thinking about it and that it might be a good creative avenue to express feelings ideas. I thought harder about it for a few more days and decided I needed more information about it. I wanted to read one of these poems that had a secret meaning. So I went back to Mrs. Krasny and asked her to show me one. She actually showed me two of them. When I read it, it made absolutely no sense to me, and I started to think to myself, "Dude, what are you doing? This is just over your head." But my brother once said to me, "The best way to get the information you need is to just ask an expert. You start by saying, 'Look. I'm an idiot. Can you explain this to me?'"  I have found that this actually works. You won't get answers unless you ask, and I could have easily just stood up and walked away and given up on poetry forever.

 

Two problems:

 

1.      I don't quit or give up, ever.

2.      I still was intrigued by this idea of having secret conversations right under people's noses. Sounds like fun!

 

So I went home and started thinking about poetry and came to the realization that I didn't know how to do it. Because Krasny is a fantastic teacher, I went back and asked for help.  I learn using the engineering design process and as we had our conversation, I began to realize that poetry isn't going just happen like they show in the movies. I need to brainstorm, and then start formulating ideas and then make a draft. So I needed a NEW journal. I actually thought about blogging, but the internet reveals too much information and the secret meanings wouldn't be secret. So I bought a new journal just for poetry.

 

Then about a week ago, I picked a subject and started the brainstorming. The crazy part is that I started thinking about POETRY even when I didn't want to be THINKING ABOUT POETRY! GRRRRRRR! SHARON KRASNY! IT'S ALL HER FAULT! She made me learn and do something completely interesting and cool!

 

To add to this, I have been thinking about making a blog anyway and she also suggested that I blog about my poetry writing experience.  Seems like a good idea, because I’ll be honest about the experience.   I might not give away the secret meanings, but I will share the experience.

 

So let this poetic journey begin.