More treasures from the attic

A couple of years ago, I discovered all sorts of ancient artifacts in my parents’ attic, dating back to my childhood years. These relics included things like my very first typewriter, my 1st-grade lunchbox, and journals I kept for my high school English classes.

Well, as it turned out, my folks did NOT sell the house as they were initially thinking they would – so I was back there today, sorting through the more than 40+ years of stuff they’ve accumulated. And what did I find this time?

Picture books from the ’50s and ’60s, which I don’t ever recall seeing before…which makes me wonder why they were in the attic in the first place! Many of these were published by Golden Press (home of Little Golden Books), Whitman Publishing (which is still around, although they no longer publish children’s books), and Platt & Munk, which is no longer in business. (If the name Platt & Munk sounds familiar, it’s probably because they published several of Tasha Tudor’s books)

I do remember loving The Drum Book and Little Red Riding Hood:

  

Little Red Riding Hood was particularly engaging, because it had moving character illustrations beneath cellophane pages; as you opened the spread, the characters would move, so the reader could make them move back-and-forth by opening and closing the spread. This was one of many of these types of books published by Child Guidance Books, and although there is no publication date on the book, my best guess is mid-’60s to early ’70s.

And then there were the classics…

I pray that Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever (Golden Books, 1963) never goes out of print…it was as fascinating for me as it has been for my kids, even though they never got to read one of the originals, like this one, which is unfortunately falling apart. Who doesn’t love watching Lowly Worm riding around in his apple car, or Gold Bug in his pencil car?

By the way, I hope you’ll join me this Friday here at the ol’ Triple-R for our annual Holiday Poetry Party! This is a virtual event that began at children’s poet David Harrison’s home on the web several years ago with me, David, and Joy Acey, and has since moved over here.

It’s an informal gathering, so feel free to show up in your sweats and jammies if you’re so inclined – and if you’d care to bring a bite to eat or beverage, please let us know!

I also plan to share the poem I received from Margaret Simon as part of Tabatha Yeatts‘ annual Winter Poetry Swap. Tabatha randomly gave Margaret my name, so Margaret had to write a poem for me and sent it with a small gift. There’s a cool story behind why Margaret wrote what she did, so I’ll share that here. And I hope to share the poem I wrote soon, once I know the person I sent it to has received it.

Oh, yes – and as a first-round judge of the annual CYBILS Awards‘ Poetry category, I’m racing against time to read as many of the 60 or so nominated books as possible, and narrow the list down to a shortlist of SEVEN! There are five I’m pretty sure are going to stay on my list…but that could change once I finish all my reading. The final list that all the judges decide upon will then be forwarded to the second-round panelists, who determine the winner early next year.

I hope you’ll stop by Friday for our party! I’ll be looking forward to learning your favorite children’s books from the past year, so start thinking about which ones caught your attention and stood out from the pack!

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Ordering personalized signed copies online?
Oh, yes, you can!

  

You can purchase personalized signed copies of Flashlight Night, (Boyds Mills Press, 2017), Don’t Ask a Dinosaur (Pow! Kids Books, 2018), and nearly ALL of the books or anthologies I’ve been part of!

Just click the cover of whichever book you want and send the good folks at MainStreet BookEnds in Warner, NH a note requesting the signature and to whom I should make it out to. (alternatively, you can log onto my website and do the same thing) They’ll contact me, I’ll stop by and sign it for you, and then they’ll ship it. Try doing that with those big online booksellers! (Plus, you’ll be helping to support local book-selling – and wouldn’t that make you feel good?)

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Thank you to everyone for your support!

• NY Public Library’s “100 Best Book for Kids 2017” AND “Staff Pick!”
• KIRKUS Starred review!
• Kansas NEA Reading Circle Recommended Books!
• “Best Reads of 2017,” Unleashing Readers
• Amazon “Best Books of the Month,” Sept. 2017
• Positive reviews from Horn Book, School Library Connection, Booklist, Publisher’s Weekly, and Shelf-Awareness
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  • “Rollicking rhyme!” – Booklist
  • “A wild romp!” – Parenting NH Magazine
  • “Cute…intriguing…4 out of 5 stars”     – Tulsa Book Review
  • “Rhythmic…funny and informative”     – Unleashing Readers

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Did you like this post? Find something interesting elsewhere in this blog? I really won’t mind at all if you feel compelled to share it with your friends and followers!

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Also feel free to visit my voiceover website HERE, and you can also follow me via Twitter , Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and SoundCloud!

Poetry Friday: Throwback Summer concludes in “Stride”

Let me just tell you.. I am SO glad I didn’t need to come up with anything too long or witty for today’s post – I simply could not have done it.

Just before 3pm on Thursday afternoon, I was ripping out part of our garden when I apparently disturbed a yellowjacket nest. I was promptly stung about 8 times, primarily on my scalp. Not fun.

Then, after my wife came home from work, we were eating dinner when the crown on my right front tooth fell out – and rather than relax for awhile, I was on my way into the city half an hour away to get to a pharmacy for crown repair cement. Doubly not fun.

And this is all happening the day before I begin a long, 4-day weekend as the PA announcer for the local state fair! Triply not fun.

I’ve been trying to maintain a positive attitude about all this (hey, at least I didn’t have a serious allergic reaction to the stings, right?), but in all honesty, I’ve had enough. I’m exhausted, and my bed is looking really good right now.

So with that said, I can now present the final installment of my Throwback Summer series, which started when I discovered my old high school journals and other papers in my parent’s attic.

Today’s poem was written in my college Creative Writing class, and I was still trying to get a handle on free verse at this point. I really liked rhyme and structure and that sort of thing, so free verse took some getting used to. And unlike most of the Throwback Summer poems I’ve shared here, this one isn’t too bad. Yes, it has its faults, but compared to everything that has come before…I think it holds its own…

I hope you’ve enjoyed this trip down Memory Lane – it’s certainly been eye-opening for me, to recall what I was writing and doing back then. And it’s quite a relief, to know that my writing has gotten (marginally) better! Speaking of writing, Penny Parker Klostermann is hosting Poetry Friday today, so please stop by and check out all the links and fun!

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Did you like this post? Find something interesting elsewhere in this blog? I really won’t mind at all if you feel compelled to share it with your friends and followers!

To keep abreast of all my posts, please consider subscribing via the links up there on the right!  (I usually only post twice a week – on Tues. and Fri. – so you won’t be inundated with emails every day)

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Also feel free to visit my voiceover website HERE, and you can also follow me via Twitter , Facebook, Pinterest, and SoundCloud!

Poetry Friday: A little bit of “patience” during Throwback Summer

As I mentioned back at the beginning of summer, I’m sharing some “choice” tidbits from high school and college – and if you’ve read any of the past posts, you know I use the term “choice” extremely loosely. These poems were found in my parents’ attic while I was cleaning it out, and it’s been a veritable treasure trove of literary mediocrity.

That said, things took a turn for the (marginally) better last Friday, when I shared a poem I wrote in my college Creative Writing class. Now, with only two weeks left of “Throwback Summer,” as I call it, I am down to the best two poems I have from my early writing days.

Talk about “Throwback”…who IS this guy? This was taken around the same time this poem was written, circa late-1990. I’ve since lost the glasses AND the hair…dang, I would’ve kept the glasses had I know the hair was part of the deal.

Today’s poem was actually written a little over a year after my college graduation. I was living on my own and was 6 months into my very first full-time job, ever, working for an AM/FM radio station group in St. Albans, VT.

For some reason, this poem was packed away with all my other papers from college, so I figured I’d include it, even though I had already had two poems published before I wrote this. (One of those poems, “Bantam, CT (July 1989),” was featured here this past February, and the other, “The Situation,” I shared last summer)

Like the other Throwback poems I’ve shared with you, there are many things I’d do to revise the following, but overall I don’t think it’s too bad for a 23-year-old guy who never considered writing poetry professionally! (Side note: Patience was the name of the woman I was dating at the time; the poem didn’t really have anything to do with her, but I liked the word and the imagery I came up with using it)

Patience

Cold, black dagger sweeps past
face;
separates now from then
so slowly cutting,
deeply,
intentionally…
…perfectly.
A study in constancy –
feel the pain,
crying;
each individual, steady slice
more deadly
than the previous, yet –
no blood.
No victim, really,
only harsh victimization;
sharp reality.
Second razor-weapon
follows lead of first –
cold and black, keeping perfect pace;
slower by threescore,
yet nevertheless
constant.
Blood-red pick sets beat,
for weapons
and I
to follow;
my weapon (neither
dagger nor pick)
ready –
not to follow,
but to end
constancy,
longing,
pain.
It is
I.

– Matt Forrest Esenwine, © 1990

Fellow poetry blogger/writer Heidi Mordhorst is hosting Poetry Friday today at My Juicy Little Universe, so make sure you head over and check out all the poetic offerings! And I hope you’ll join me next week for the final installment of Throwback Summer, and what I consider the “best of the worst”: a poem I wrote in college in 1988 that – while not perfect – is good enough that I should probably revise it and send it out (but I’m way too busy for that)!

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Did you like this post? Find something interesting elsewhere in this blog? I really won’t mind at all if you feel compelled to share it with your friends and followers!

To keep abreast of all my posts, please consider subscribing via the links up there on the right!  (I usually only post twice a week – on Tues. and Fri. – so you won’t be inundated with emails every day)

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Also feel free to visit my voiceover website HERE, and you can also follow me via Twitter , Facebook, Pinterest, and SoundCloud!

Poetry Friday: Throwback Summer takes a 180 turn…

…into Not-Quite-So-Bad Land.

As you might have heard, I’m sharing some of my old high school poetry each Friday this summer – and yes, most of it has been painfully horrendous.

But as we’re coming to the final stretch of this series (I anticipate wrapping up this trip back in time the first week of September), I’m now sharing a couple of poems I wrote in college. And although they are not the best poems ever written, they are nowhere near as vomit-inducing as most of the previous ones I’ve subjected you to.

(In other words, if you were expecting another “Ode to a Dishrag,” prepare to be disappointed)

Today’s poem was one of the first free verse poems I ever wrote. (The very first one was actually published!) It was written for my college Creative Writing class with Dr. Joyce Thomas, at Castleton State College, Vermont. I recall revising it a number of times, so I think  this was the final version. If you don’t mind mixed metaphors, verbose lines, and obvious connections, read on…

The Performance

Houselights down:
the sky grows increasingly dark
pinholes of stars shrouded
by clouds fully drenched with water;
giant sponges
floating in the otherwise barren atmosphere,
waiting to be squeezed by some giant hand.
A burst of light, center stage –
a short flash of lightning illuminates the earth below,
the black, India-ink sky turns to a dull gray.
The celestial sphere appears as an oyster shell.
Two more bolts spotlight the event;
……….Act I, Scene 1.
Hesitant only for a split second
lightning’s comrade enters stage right,
jarring the thoughts of those already attentive.
The deep baritone voice of the leading man
echoes throughout the auditorium;
more loud rolls of thunder echo each other,
flowing over grassy hills that provide proper acoustics.
the curtain of soaking rain
drops from the proscenium
to a captive audience lost
in bewilderment.

The show begins.

– Matt Forrest Esenwine, 10-20-88, Class: ENG465

This is one of those poems that I’d really like to shave down and rewrite…but I have so many other more pressing things to do I’m sure it’ll never happen! The one thing I like best about this is the fact that I was able to combine a narrative with some poetic imagery and internal rhyme, even if it was quite amateurish and clunky.

My professor (a published poet), knowing how bad most of my poetry had been up to this point, seemed genuinely impressed that I had somehow knocked this out onto paper. With her encouragement, I soldiered on and wrote many, many more truly horrible poems in-between a handful of publishable ones. I like to think that I have now turned that ratio on its head…but that might just be me being delusional.

Ready for some more poetry? Much better poetry? Then please visit Doraine Bennett at Dori Reads for today’s complete Poetry Friday Roundup!

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Did you like this post? Find something interesting elsewhere in this blog? I really won’t mind at all if you feel compelled to share it with your friends and followers!

To keep abreast of all my posts, please consider subscribing via the links up there on the right!  (I usually only post twice a week – on Tues. and Fri. – so you won’t be inundated with emails every day)

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Also feel free to visit my voiceover website HERE, and you can also follow me via Twitter , Facebook, Pinterest, and SoundCloud!

Poetry Friday: The worst poem ever used as a writing workshop example (yes, Throwback Summer continues!)

I have been amazed – in both good ways and bad – at the amount of poetry I’ve come across while poring over my old high school journals, which were discovered earlier this summer in my folks’ attic.

Most of it was horrendously bad – but at least I was writing, and that practice helped hone my poetry skills, vocabulary, and my sense of humor. This is why I encourage people to #WriteLikeNoOneIsReading – if we’re all supposed to dance like no one’s watching, with carefree abandon, we should apply the same principle to writing, yes?

So today, I’m sharing a poem I wrote in April 1985, and although I didn’t plan to use it as an example during my free verse poetry workshop at the New England SCBWI conference this past spring…that’s exactly what happened.

I was explaining different types of poetic “voice” (Lyrical, Narrative, Dramatic) and made mention of two types of dramatic voice: mask and apostrophe. Mask voice is when the poet speaks from the point-of-view of an inanimate object or animal; apostrophe, on the other hand, is when the poet is speaking to an inanimate object or animal.

(Speaking to a specific person might be considered apostrophe, but would most likely be deemed lyrical voice as opposed to dramatic voice, since lyrical poems are spoken in the first person…it’s a bunch of technical, poetic mumbo-jumbo that only academicians fret over, so don’t worry if you’ve already forgotten what we were talking about.)

Anyhoo…I was explaining apostrophe (the poetic voice, not the punctuation mark) and the following poem suddenly popped in my head – and this was before I even discovered it hidden away between old, empty jelly jars and a dust-covered Air Hockey table at my parents’ place. Yes, it’s a rhyming poem, but it uses apostrophe in a most ridiculously overblown way, elevating a kitchen cleaning product to Shakespearean heights.

Even now, I look back on this and chuckle…it wasn’t the greatest poem ever written, but I’ve read a lot of poems that were worse, written by adults who should know better:

Ode to a Dishrag

O limpy piece of terrycloth,
Stained from last night’s chicken broth,
How I love to hold you, thus –
I clean pans and you don’t fuss.
And tho’ you soak in many a sud,
Ne’er do you complain of the crud.
You don’t mind the soggy bread,
Burnt-on Spam of which I dread),
Bits of egg and moldy cheese…
You put up with all of these.
Coffee grinds, potato skins,
Parts of fish – like eyes and fins –
And then, of course, there’s pots and pans
That always seem to stick to hands.
All these things you clean with care;
You touch things I wouldn’t dare.
So if I never let you know,
Dishrag, how I love you so!

– Matt Forrest Esenwine, April 11, 1985

I’m honestly not sure what kind of “poetry” I’ll be sharing next week, but I only have one or two more weeks left of my Throwback Summer – so your brain can rest easy knowing that by the time the kids are back in school, (slightly) more tolerable poetry will be coming your way here at the ol’ Triple-R blog.

Speaking of back-to-school, Julieanne at To Read To Write To Be has today’s Poetry Friday roundup, and is as excited as a person can be as she prepares to venture forth in the new academic year. So head on over and check out all the poetry links and fun!

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Did you like this post? Find something interesting elsewhere in this blog? I really won’t mind at all if you feel compelled to share it with your friends and followers!

To keep abreast of all my posts, please consider subscribing via the links up there on the right!  (I usually only post twice a week – on Tues. and Fri. – so you won’t be inundated with emails every day)

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Also feel free to visit my voiceover website HERE, and you can also follow me via Twitter , Facebook, Pinterest, and SoundCloud!

Poetry Friday: The poem that killed William Shakespeare, as Throwback Summer continues

Before we get to my very first attempt at iambic pentameter (or at least, the first documented attempt), I want to take a quick moment to encourage you to check out my astounding news from this past Tuesday!

As for today’s post, yes, it is another “lost classic” from my high school English journals…and it’s poems like this one that prove some things need to remain lost.

As I have mentioned before, I am sharing some choice entries from my early years as a way to a) show you what a geek I was; b) test your stamina for reading bad poetry; and c) show how far one can go in his/her writing career, even when the start of that career is inauspicious, to say the least. Heck, if I can get published, anyone can get published!

This is a poem to which I have previously alluded, but wasn’t sure if I could even find! It’s one of those poems that I remembered writing, but didn’t know if would show up in one these journals. As it turned out…it did!

Now, before you read this, you need to understand a few things:

• I had an odd but very healthy sense of humour.
• I wanted to write something in iambic pentameter, but didn’t want to write about anything typical.
• If I was going to write about something ridiculous in iambic pentameter, I would need to write as loftily (is that a word?) as possible, for the fullest humourous effect.
• I added to the preposterousness of this poem – and made fun of my past poems, as well – by providing a study guide. Because that’s what high school English classes do, don’t they??

Less than one month before graduation, I was writing stuff like this… (click to enlarge)

It is generally accepted that Shakespeare died of a fever after drinking too much. However, scholars now believe it was actually this poem that did it.

My angst-ridden, love-addled classmates had nothing on me when it came to elevating the most mundane subjects into soaring, metrical verse. Somehow, I’ve managed to maintain my sense of humour while actually making a living reading, writing, and speaking. Go figure!

That’s why I say it’s important to write – no matter what it is. It may only be for your eyes, but it’s working your brain, it’s connecting synapses that hadn’t existed before, and it’s ultimately helping you develop your craft. #WriteLikeNoOneIsReading!

By the way, I’ve still got a few more “gems” I’ll be sharing before the end of the month, so consider yourself warned. If you’re still in the mood for poetry – and I apologize if you need a moment to compose yourself – you can check out today’s complete Poetry Friday roundup at A Teaching Life with Tara Smith!

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Did you like this post? Find something interesting elsewhere in this blog? I really won’t mind at all if you feel compelled to share it with your friends and followers!

To keep abreast of all my posts, please consider subscribing via the links up there on the right!  (I usually only post twice a week – on Tues. and Fri. – so you won’t be inundated with emails every day)

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Also feel free to visit my voiceover website HERE, and you can also follow me via Twitter , Facebook, Pinterest, and SoundCloud!

Poetry Friday: Monarchy memorization, as Throwback Summer stumbles along

As I scan through the pages of my final senior English class journal, I am met with all sorts of strange writings: word puzzles, short essays on why I was so different from everyone (ya think?), and even long treatises on how bored I was about having to write in a journal.

(The treasure trove of history and nostalgia that I came across at my parents’ house earlier this summer has been eye-opening, to say the least; you can read more about what I discovered and why I’m featuring my high school writings HERE.)

Today it’s a little rhyming (more or less) history lesson. In my journal, I admit the poem is crude – but even now, I have to give myself credit for even thinking this thing up. If you’ve ever wanted to memorize the kings and queens of England, look no further…

Homework

1660, the Stuarts came;
2nd Charles and 2nd James,
Billy 3rd and Mary 2,
finally Anne was the last of the Stu’s.

Then the house of Hanover:
1st four Georges did come over.
William 4 was next in line,
Vicky lasted for some time.

Just two kings for Saxon-Coburg:
Ed the 7th and 5th of George.

Then the House of Windsor came.
George the 5th (same man, new name),
Ed the 8th one year was in,
then George the 6th, and Beth’s still in.

– Matt Forrest Esenwine, 5-1-85

Just over a month away from graduating high school, and while all the girls were writing poems about love, lovers, love lost, love regained, love unrequited, love, love,  love, blabbedy-love…here I was with my English monarch ditty. If you wonder how popular I was in school, this should leave no doubt.

For more poetry (and much better poetry, I might add), I encourage you to visit Margaret Simon’s home on the web, Reflections on the Teche, for today’s Poetry Friday roundup!

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Did you like this post? Find something interesting elsewhere in this blog? I really won’t mind at all if you feel compelled to share it with your friends and followers!

To keep abreast of all my posts, please consider subscribing via the links up there on the right!  (I usually only post twice a week – on Tues. and Fri. – so you won’t be inundated with emails every day)

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Also feel free to visit my voiceover website HERE, and you can also follow me via Twitter , Facebook, Pinterest, and SoundCloud!

Poetry Friday: “Ode to Lint,” a Throwback Summer lost classic

Yes, this poem had been lost for a long time…and had I not stumbled upon it in my parents’ attic, we all would have probably been better off.

If you have somehow not heard, I am sharing bits and pieces of my high school journals this summer, having come across a huge stash of old schoolwork while cleaning out my folks’ house, in preparation for its sale.

Back in June, I wrote about the initial discovery, and just this past Tuesday I explained why it was inevitable that I ended up in careers involving writing and advertising. Today, I’m sharing another one of the chestnuts I wrote in my English journal during senior year…and although it’s far from stellar-quality, it is probably the best-written poem I’ve shared from my journals so far.

You be the judge…

“Ode to Lint, II”

What is this, that I do see
floating past, in front of me?
Small dust speck, or puff of hair?
What is that thing flying there?
I reach out, it comes to me,
hardly larger than a flea;
I look close, I analyze.
Staring hard, I scrutinize
and attempt (as best I can)
to discern this work of Man.
Oh, too hard to contemplate!
Leaves my hand to impend fate.
What is that, that I do see
floating past, in front of me?
Small dust speck, or puff of hair?
What is that thing flying there??

– © 1985, Matt Forrest Esenwine, 4-4-85

Now, you have not known this until now, but I’ve done you the great service of not sharing most of the horrible poetry I wrote back then. Yes, yes…hard to believe, considering the subterranean level of quality of most of it. But true.

I had a penchant for trying to elevate the most mundane, ridiculous objects into flowery, verbose poems – so consider yourself fortunate that I have not shared my “Ode to a Stool,” “Ode to a Desk,” “Ode to Crust,” “Ode to Dropping Socks,” “Ode to Slippery Shoes,” “Ode to a Deep Thought,” or – what just might be the worst of all – my “Ode to Lint, I.” That’s right, I wasn’t happy with just one poem about lint; I apparently felt the subject was worthy of two, at least.

For today’s complete Poetry Friday roundup, head on over to Books 4 Learning. And be prepared…there’s a whole lot more mediocrity coming your way next week, right here!

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Did you like this post? Find something interesting elsewhere in this blog? I really won’t mind at all if you feel compelled to share it with your friends and followers!

To keep abreast of all my posts, please consider subscribing via the links up there on the right!  (I usually only post twice a week – on Tues. and Fri. – so you won’t be inundated with emails every day)

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Also feel free to visit my voiceover website HERE, and you can also follow me via Twitter , Facebook, Pinterest, and SoundCloud!

Throwback Summer continues: “The Inevitability of Advertising”

As I mentioned at the beginning of summer, I recently came upon several boxes of my old schoolwork, hidden away at my parents’ attic which I’m cleaning out in advance of its sale.

While it’s nostalgic to look back at these journals, projects, and tests – and a bit disheartening, knowing my childhood home is going to be sold – it has been enlightening for me, as well. I have been able to read so many things I’d forgotten about, that I can now look back on and realize how they played a role in me developing into…well, me.

Wow, what happened? Before the contacts, before the braces, before the male pattern baldness…I was a high school senior 3 1/2 months away from graduation. This photo was taken by Mrs. Jencks, my English teacher, in Feb. 1985. Considering how straight-laced I was, I have no idea why I look so stoned.

Since I have been spending my Fridays sharing some of the >ahem< “poetry” that I was writing in my journals back then, I thought I would share something that foreshadowed my other career: advertising.

I began working in radio right after my college freshman year, and I’ve been writing, voicing, and producing commercials ever since. It’s no wonder I do voiceover work for a living! (If you’d like to learn more about that aspect of my life these days, or would like to know how I might be able to help you with your advertising, please click HERE.)

I loved writing and acting before I had even entered high school, and in addition to poetry and short stories, I developed a fondness for advertising. I owe this to the genius of Stan Freberg, whose old radio shows and commercials I had grown up listening to, thanks to my dad.

(click to enlarge. But why would you??)

By the time I was in high school, I was writing and voicing (and sometimes pre-recording) the morning announcements and living the dream in drama club. Reading a steady diet of Mad Magazine, Cracked, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy while watching British comedies like Monty Python and the under-appreciated The Goodies carved my sense of humor into what it is today.

Looking back on all this now, I completely understand why I made up fake advertisements for some of my journal entries, like this…

And since I made reference to “Loc-Tite” doorknobs, I figured I’d resurrect the product for what I think was a Creative Writing class project. I didn’t fool around, either – this thing was poster-sized:

(click to enlarge. Again, I have no idea why you would)

That’s right, kids – we didn’t have Photoshop, we didn’t have scanners, we didn’t have selfies. This selfie, in fact, was probably taken by one of my parents on my old 110 camera, which was then brought to a Fotomat and developed in time for me to cut it out and paste it, and — whoa, hold on. I think I just hit old age. Pass me the Geritol.

(click to enlarge. But you should really know better by now)

Anyway, even though I can tell I was trying too hard to be funny, I can completely appreciate where this style of humor came from. Like I said, too many issues of Cracked magazine and too many episodes of Fawlty Towers.

And a big, big influence from Stan Freberg, who I referenced earlier. He still influences my copy writing to this day.

Oh, and then there was this masterpiece journal entry from Feb. 1985, just a few days after that horrible photo of me was taken…

And yes, these were journal entries.

While some teens were pouring their hearts out in belabored free verse and others were writing about partying over the weekend, I was there making up fake advertisements, ridiculous rhyming poetry, and concocting word puzzles.

Somehow, I graduated as valedictorian. So the moral of the story is, if I can do it, anyone can!

(Stay tuned…more dubious-quality poetry coming up this Friday, when I feature “Ode to Lint!” And yes, I’m totally serious!)

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Poetry Friday: Throwback Summer continues, with blood and chips

It’s another priceless artifact from one of Yours Truly’s high school journals…and while the poem is fairly mediocre, I’m quite proud of myself for the rhymes I was able to come up with…

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Sitting here eating a bag of Doritos,
I notice the high, humming sound of mosquitos.
I eat my corn chips sprinkled with cheese
and feel a proboscis sink into my knees.
While all I can taste are corn, cheese, and spices,
they suck out my blood like they’re having a crisis.

– Matt Forrest Esenwine, 4/18/83

Yep, just a few months away from wrapping up my sophomore year, and I was cracking myself up with these ridiculous poems. As I’ve said before, we all have to start somewhere, right?

If you’d care to find out why I’m sharing some of these early writings, I explain it all HERE. Be sure to check out all of today’s Poetry Friday offerings – and view the complete schedule for the rest of 2016 – by checking out Kidlitosphere Central’s Poetry Friday page!

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Did you like this post? Find something interesting elsewhere in this blog? I really won’t mind at all if you feel compelled to share it with your friends and followers!

To keep abreast of all my posts, please consider subscribing via the links up there on the right!  (I usually only post twice a week – on Tues. and Fri. – so you won’t be inundated with emails every day)

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Also feel free to visit my voiceover website HERE, and you can also follow me via Twitter , Facebook, Pinterest, and SoundCloud!