Tracy Hamon

I don’t don' know how or when, but I remember stumbling across "Waiting for Icarus" by Muriel Rukeyser. I remember the feeling I had after the poem, not a feeling I can describe well, but the poem itself changed the way I thought of poetry. It made me want to write better. For the most part, I don't really remember one poem over another in high school (we were taught a lot of non-Canadian poetry), but the Western Producer had a section for youth writing. It was called the YC (Youth Club). Any budding young writer could join the club, submit work to the editors, usually peers, and then wait with teenaged-anxiety to see if your work would get printed. We used pen names as well, which made it somehow more exciting! 

I first starting writing poetry when I was about 15, but I never considered myself a poet. I considered myself a writer, and as such, I wrote anything! I wrote during algebra (a story that included each and every classmate), I wrote poetry reponses instead of essays for English (we were allowed to do so at the time), I wrote novels by hand (lost to the world). I wrote short stories for the school newspaper. 

I was asked just the other day why I write poetry. I said it's because of the language, it's about finding the right word, form and conveying a feeling to the reader. It's complex and intricate and you can spend days, months, even years perfecting poetry. I'm a poet because of poetry. 

Poets, like all writers, are watchers. We observe the world and report back through our writing. 

"Common Magic" by Bronwen Wallace.