Writing Poetry

This English class has gotten me thinking about writing.  In recent years it has become a practical thing.  I write a note or a list. A few years ago I was writing poetry.  It started one day while I was doing laundry. I was looking at the wrinkly laundry. Wrinkly, finkly...I thought, it sounded much like a nursery rhyme. I ran upstairs and sat down and wrote a poem about a lion.  After that I started using daily incidents in the life of my family as inspiration and began to write from a child's perspective. This evolved into recording stories from my parents and grandparents childhood in the form of poems.  I now have a collection of 70 children's poems.

The other night for Family Home Evening we decide to have a poetry reading night.  As we were collecting books to choose our poems from I found my collection of poems. I had printed them out and put them together in a three ring binder.  As a thumbed through the pages I remembered the excitement and sense of accomplishment.  Why have I stopped writing?  Am I just too busy? 

I found one poem with an interesting story behind it.  My neighbor Chris had asked me to write a poem for an upcoming Relief Society meeting.  She wanted something to give to the women to take home that reflected our feelings as women.  I spent time and effort trying to write something that would strike a cord with these women.  That evening as each woman received and read the poem I received warm and positive feedback.  One year later I was at my mother's house and I picked up a decorative piece of paper with a poem on it.  I almost dropped the paper when I recognized the poem as my own.  Someone in her ward had distributed my poem.  My name was there under the title.  I suspect it was Penny ( a friend of Chris's) who wanted to use the poem the same way we had.  Today I decided to polish up this poem and submit it to the Ensign Magazine. I have no idea if it will be publish or not but it makes me feel good to take be taking the things I have written seriously.