The Young Poet

     When I was in the fifth grade, my teacher asked each of us to write a poem. Whether or not she told us the real reason, I don't remember (I probably wasn't paying attention, as usual), but it was that she planned to enter one of them in the Young Pegasus Poetry Contest, a city-wide contest sponsored by the San Antonio Public Library for budding poets grades 1-12. I wrote a concrete poem (a poem that has a significant shape on the page) in the shape of a diamond called "Sun and Moon" which was chosen as one of the winners in the fifth grade division. The results for being a winner were publication in that year's Young Pegasus anthology, a luncheon at which all the winners met and shared their poems, and a taped television appearance in which the older winners read their own poems and the younger had their poems read by one of the judges.
     The only person I remember at that winners' luncheon was the then 17-year-old Naomi Shihab (Nye), who is today one of this country's most respected and prolific poets. I remember her, not for her poetry, but for her appearance that day -- she looked like a poet to me: loose, flowing clothes, waist-long hair in a braid, very sort of bohemian.
     The television appearance was rather embarrassing for me and, I imagine, for the rest of the younger winners who weren't allowed to read our own pieces. Instead, each of us had to perch on a stool doing absolutely nothing except look straight at the camera, goofy and uncomfortable, while listening to his or her poem being read. What on earth were they thinking, putting us through such embarrassment?!
     This did not put me off writing poetry, however. Through middle school, I wrote quite a lot of it, compiling my work into a collection called Poems of a Childhood Romance. Except for drafts of a few of the poems, it has since disappeared. (Judging from those extant drafts, it's no great loss!) I wrote a few more in high school, but by then I was more interested in writing songs in the style of Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, John Denver, etc., and I dreamt of wandering round the country with my guitar and a knapsack, earning my weekly bread by singing my ballads in smoky, dimly lit coffee houses. Eventually, of course, I intended to meet a fellow balladeer, preferably a James Taylor type, build a cabin with him in the mountains, have twenty children, and live off the land.
     On the other hand, I was still the aspiring concert pianist, giving performances and entering (but hardly ever winning) competitions. This persona dressed more neatly than the balladeer, enjoyed meals at stylish restaurants (Ms. von's treat), and dreamt of dwelling in marble halls, single, but with a string of wealthy and powerful lovers.
     In both these fantasies, I never stopped writing in one form or another.
     When I was in the eighth grade I followed my sister Alice's example and started to keep a journal. Being an aspiring writer, I never meant my journal to be private, but passed it round among my friends (is it any wonder I eventually decided to blog?). I also wrote short stories, which were really my own original episodes of The Partridge Family, all of which were centered around Keith (David Cassidy). There was even a rough outline and one chapter of a novel entitled Sisters and Lovers, a tale of two orphaned sisters in early 20th-century San Francisco; the elder was prudent and practical, the younger impulsive and romantic. If this sounds suspiciously like an American Sense and Sensibility, let me hasten to say I hadn't even heard of that novel at that time, much less read it. However, I had read Little Women and was very much influenced by Alcott's style -- in fact, that was the start of my love affair with the semi-colon.
     The novel, poetry, and song writing all fizzled out (temporarily) by my senior year in high school, but I continued to keep a journal and my dreams of becoming a concert pianist.