How I began to write

I have always loved words. I read a lot of books in elementary school like The Chronicles Of Narnia and The Magic Treehouse Series. It wasn’t until a unit on poetry in middle school that I realized I loved to write too. My teacher had us memorize poems and recite them to the class. The one I distinctly remember is A Dream Within a Dream By Edgar Allan Poe (also below). I still have most of that one memorized. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I remember wondering if I could write anything like that. The last part of that unit was to write ten original poems. That was the beginning of my life as a poet. I enjoyed the entire process of creating those ten poems.

Edgar Allan Poe was the main influence on my writing when I first started. I think my main draw to him was because in my opinion, rhyming is a very fun flow to a poem but he paired that with a lot of dark and creepy words. That inspired me to think more out of the box when creating a piece. Since then, my main inspiration is emotions, usually my own. Of all the books and poems I’ve read, it was the ones that physically brought out my emotions that I love the most. That is what I strive to do because I believe there is nothing better than connecting with words so deeply.
 
A Dream Within a Dream
By Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow —
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone? 
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand —
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?