Making myself a poet

When I was 18, I sent a poem to Rod McKuen's manager.  If you don't know who he is you're a lot younger than I am.  At that time, McKuen had attained recognition most poets only dream of in the U.S.  Everything he did was a national best seller.
His manager was kind enough to write me back and encouraged me to work harder at my passion and never give up. Encouragement that I didn't really need, but appreciated.
Not long ago, I started going over some old material for a poetry project and ran across that poem.  Sitting in the garage reading it, my face started turning red.  I couldn't believe that I sent something that bad to McKuen's manager, even though I thought it was great at the time.  Continuing my wandering through the boxes - looking for copies of out-of-print books, I started reading my first two books.  Again, I found flaws in almost every poem in those books.  I wanted to re-write them.  I must have been stoned when I wrote those, and the 30,000 or so people who bought them must have been stoned too.  You know what they say about the hippie era - If you remember it, you probably weren't there.
My third book wasn't bad.  I had matured by then, and it reflected in my writing.  By then I was well entrenched into art shows, galleries and boutiques as outlets for my books and poems, which I displayed in artistic presentations that I had developed.  I had discovered that people who like art tend to also like poetry, so that was my target market, as, poetry and art were my passions, but by then, selling them was also my business. 
I had the privilege of meeting most of the people who bought my work face to face.  They shared the most intimate aspects of their lives with me, as they assumed from my poems that I would not judge them, and they were right.  I also would have kids come up to me and show me their poems, which in some cases were surprisingly good for such young people.  I never discouraged people, young or old.  I encouraged them to always follow their passions and to express themselves artistically, because, even if they were as bad as I was, they had the potential for greatness as they matured.  My mantra to people beginning - discovering who they are - is to never give up.  Explore who you are and display it from your soul, for that is your beauty to share.
I have done this with literally thousands of people.  I don't know if I helped or changed peoples lives for the better in all those years of encounters.  I know they made my life better.  They did more than keep my family housed, clothed and fed.  They shared who they were with me as much as I shared who I was with them.  I could not have asked for a better life.











All content - poems, posts & images - are ©2010 by John Evans. No permission is given to post, share, copy, print, e-mail, reproduce, distribute or link to. All Rights Reserved. Please contact John Evans at JohnEvansPoet.Com for licensing inquiries.