Do you still have poetry that you wrote many years ago? How has your poetry changed, improved or transformed into what it is today?

Do you feel the way you did when you originally wrote it?

Would others recognize your style in your early works?

Tell us about your very first poem?

I encourage you to post a sample/excerpt from your early poetry, and we can discuss.

This is probably my first 'proper' poem. It was written in great sadness on the confirmation that my grandchild would never develop normally as she was born with half of her brain missing.

I feel the same now as I did then.

I do not know if i have a style - others may recognize one but I can't.

WHO DARES TO DREAM (for Annie)

This space
cloud filled
cold shrilled
without substance
unformed
unborn
where thoughts whirl in a tangle of sound
and sounds mingle with fear and uncried tears
where days and nights have no margins
undivided
unguided
And what of tomorrow?
will sun's rays bring comfort
and burn away the blanket clouds that smother
unformed thoughts?
will rebirth follow?
creating needs
and flushing petal cheeks with tints of day
will reason have a chance to enter in this scene
or is it unreasonable to dream?

Then - as now - I only have a hazy understanding of punctuation. having been educated to primary school level and being dyslectic makes some things a bit unfathomable.

I can also see some superfluous words comments welcome

Flyntland,

You definitely have a style and it is very touching and real. Marla

This is a stanza from an early poem about the passing of my grandmother. I was about 16 or 17 years old.

Follow Me

Follow me, leave your troubles here.
Let's put away all your fear.
I was weary, but now I can fly.
I see all you do, I watch you from the sky.

Flyntland, so wonderful you are able to work around the dyslexia and produce poems that flow with rhythm and emotion. Marla, your teenage poem about grandma who has flown away but stays right with you is wonderful! Good writing friends! I wrote scattered poems in my young adulthood, but didn't save them. I mostly wrote prose in journals (emotional whining) and eventually threw the journals all away because I did not enjoy reading them. My poetry writing started in about 2020 after I had retired; now I write poems almost every day and LOVE it. I think my style has stayed basically the same, although the poems differ in tone from time to time. Here's a poem from 2023:

From the Heart

Hello darlin'

write me a poem

any poem will do

rhyme is fine

free verse is cool

make it sweet

make it a rant

make it funny

make it sad

it matters not darlin'

just write me a poem

& I will read it eagerly

'cause from the heart

I know it flows.

I've got close to every poem I've ever completed to a level I am happy with in little A5 hardbacks - there is a lot of them. Wouldn't throw them away, whether I want people to read some of the very early stuff that's another story LOL

Me too, I have a ton of composition books full of my poetry that I will not throw away. Do you think anyone of your family or friends will appreciate your little poetry books when you are gone, Andy? I actually mull over in my head putting a note in my estate documents saying something like "and I bequeath my poetry journals to ...." But so far I can't think of anyone of the younger generation who might want them!

It is the reason that I created my poetry web page. www.grahamrichardsherwood.co.uk in order for my children and grandchildren to get to know a little about what made me tick after I’d gone. I think it’s important they have the opportunity if they want it.

We all have something in common. We are looking for a meaningful way to preserve our poetry...

Any one else have thoughts about this?

The Questions about early works to me are:

1. What to do to pass along to best poems

2. What to do with older poems where you no longer feel the same, should you edit them or just let them be.



I have been digitizing my poetry from old journals to computer files, so I have been thinking a lot about this recently.

One thing I find is it is good to keep writing. Write when things are good, when they are bad, when you don't have much to say. The sheer practice will eventually lead you to good poetry that is worthwhile.

Then keep the old ( I've kept all, about 700 ) or don't keep, edit or don't edit. But by all means, keep writing.

If only! My pre-internet writing was lost in a huge flood some time ago. The plan was to digitise them but that project never got off the ground. Some of them made it onto online poetry sites, most of them now defunct. The new plan was to gather and migrate them to current sites and such but even the servers that had the archive html pages are no longer accessible. Lulu.com had some but also no access now. It hasn’t stopped me from writing, this odd-dizzy. So I’m writing and re-writing; reconstructing and salvaging what I could. But one person can only do so much and life is what happens, as they say… “is it worth it at all?” Not sure. I just write because that’s all I know to do. 🙏🏻🕊

Yes. even though many of your early works were lost, they led you to the place where you are today.

I find myself re-editing really old poems into the style I currently prefer. My early work was very wordy and sometimes lost the point of the message.