Being a Writer

I’ve always written poems.  Early ones rhymed and I thought of them as doggerel.  A friend told me they were rhyming verse, which is what Shakespeare wrote.

Rhyming poetry
a traditional form
used by the Bard

In 2015 I joined a Women Poets’ group and found that rhyming verse was definitely considered infra dig.  In that group I experimented with different forms and even plucked up the courage to read my poems in public sometimes.  The Canterbury Poets’ Collective invited anyone to read at Turanga on National Poetry Day.  You just registered and sent them a short biography saying where you’d been published.  The poems I was satisfied with had been published on my blog, so I said so, also mentioning my propensity for rhymes.  Several friends kindly came to give support, and I was allotted a time slot with four others, all properly published poets.  I read three poems, and the final one rhymed.  The audience, sitting on the Turanga staircase, clapped.  Afterwards I was approached by a woman who introduced herself as the mother of one of the “proper” poets and told me she preferred poems that rhyme.  I began to think I had a future as a performance poet.

Words that rhyme
not classed as true poetry
by unfriendly ears

When I left paid work I needed a new identity.  The label retired was not one I fancied.  To me that sounded as though everything was over.  These days I choose to put my occupation as writer – on passport, electoral roll, and anywhere a label is required.  It’s a rare day when I don’t write something, a blog post, a newsletter item, an email message.  All demonstrating that I am truly a writer.

Every day I write
prose or poems created
justify the name