Part 1 What were your first ventures into the world of writing? Did you start out with little short stories? One-act plays with parts portrayed by siblings or friends? Or were your first efforts poetic? If so, were your own writings ever inspired by a poem you had read?  Recently, I was reviewing some of my early attempts at poetry and was struck by one's similarity to a Carl Sandburg classic that I studied in high school. Fog by Carl Sandburg The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on. Obviously, the comparison of the fog to the silent stealth of the cat intrigued me to the extent that I still remember it. Below are a few lines from my poem, which was written in 1957, a year or two after I studied Sandburg's work. Because it is rather long, I will quote only the first few lines here. Night Night creeps over meadow and hill, Stealthy like a cat,  Minding no one's business but her own, Yet seeing all… This sim...

 While I don't read poetry on a regular basis, I do enjoy the occasional collection, and I'm reading one now for review on my personal blog , The Mad Ramblings of a Joker by Brandon Dillon. I can't say much about the book as I've just started reading a few of the poems, but I'm struck by the honesty of what the author shares. Getting in touch with poetry again reminded me about how often that medium has the power to stir emotion in a way that prose often does not.  I truly believe that it's good for writers to read poetry, even if it's not your medium of choice. We learn something about how to write a story with conciseness, and we learn how to dig deep for those emotional connections we need to make with readers. Those heart-to-heart connections are what keeps a reader engaged over and above plot. Or maybe I should say below plot?  So I encourage you to give poetry a try.  Here are some recent reading recommendations from Simon & Shuster that caught my...