The Raven and Me....er...The Raven and I?

Just as I predicted, I was up all night writing.

Writing through the night always feels a little Edgar Allen Poe-ish to me. For some reason, though, when it rains, that feeling is overwhelming. I love it! I feel like I've plunked myself right into The Raven.

I remember the first time I heard The Raven. I was in elementary school and we were sitting in a little assembly room. They read it to us as some sort of "culture" thing to broaden our horizons, I guess...I don't really know the logic behind it, I was about 6-- all I cared about at the time was that it didn't cut into recess (it didn't).

That was one of the first times I realized that I had a special relationship with the written word. After our teacher, or whoever was reading it (sorry person who read it, I'm sure you're a great person, but I don't remember who you were) was finished, everyone said how stupid it was. They all ran around on the playground shouting "nevermore" and I remember being haunted by it for days. I remember thinking in my head that I wanted to be just like that guy who could FEEL stuff like that.

I wanted to know his secret.

To be honest, I didn't even know what the heck most of it meant, but I knew it was heavy and the things I did pick up on were powerful. I had this crystal clear vision in my head of what his "chamber" looked like and of what he felt like sitting in there with this bird taunting him, unleashing his own private hell on himself. I didn't know anything about anything at that age--I didn't know about wars or bombs, evil or hate, money or poverty, or even love or heartbreak, but I knew what that man was feeling when he wrote that poem simply because I felt it in my soul when I heard his words and that changed me forever. That made me want to be a writer. I wanted to do that to touch people that profoundly.

That was when I started writing poetry...and I have never stopped.

Will I ever touch people in the way that Edgar Allen Poe did?

It's a lofty goal...but the way I'll keep trying because I am the kind of person who never says never....more :)