I began writing a little in the third grade. In fact, Mrs. Gladder gave me an A that year on a short poetry writing assignment. It came out like this:
A parrot can squawk, even talk
and easily fly away.
But when a cat comes along
and acts very strong
it doesn't know what to say.
A retired foreign service officer, I have been writing evaluations, reports and position papers for about 25 years. When my USG-speak started to read like some respectable creative writing class submissions, I began to treasure time I had - dancing with my grandfather's Underwood. "Playing with words" became just that.
About 10 years ago I began to use, bend and break all the rules outlined by Strunk and White in their "Elements of Style". To my surprise, I startedto achieve "The Zone" once in awhile. Soon after I was cited as having submitted one of the most novel, to the point, fun-to-read award nominations for a staff member, I looked to try to enter it "The Zone" whenever I could. Also, I learned to get lost in time while writing. "The Zone" became my court, my shangr-la.
I felt an adrenalin rush when I tried to capture thoughts, images and feelings on paper. It pushed me to work harder - getbetter - grow as a writer. It was not easy - and it still is not. When my peers and family began asking for more I smiled inside and said to myself: why not share some of this .. stuff (I hate that word) ... with others? So -- good luck.
This short work contains a random collection or team of writes that came to me in random fashion. They are, ergo, arranged in random fashion and the type of work is not necessarily outlined for the reader. Like Free Verse - the book is Free Versa in that it shuffles from prose to poetry and back and, save for the Haiku and Senryu, no other piece is tagged as a sonnet, limerick, rhyme and so on. That is the job I hope the reader might perform.
If you are lucky enough to possess this work (smile) I hope you have a wonderful journey passing through beauty, joy, sadness, love, anguish. All are touched on in this collection.
Mosty of all I hope it is an interesting read and that you smile at least once while you work your way through it.
Thoughtfully
- air Alan I Reed (Spider49 to my classmates) |
