Things Composed of Letters

Watch this please :]


I've been writing poetry since fifth grade. Back then, I was being heavily influenced by nu-metal bands and really just trying to emulate their styles rather than molding my own. Needless to say, it sucked. In 5th grade I went to Young Author's Conference for a piece of prose that I wrote for school, but in the years that followed I attempted to create my own work and pick from my best poems to use for the conferences. They improved exponentially every year.

In 7th grade I felt a wave of adolescent problems befall upon me all at once and my poetry became stricken with sordid and grotesque imagery. Not in a way that makes you think or changes your view, just like "What the fuck is wrong with that kid" kind of sick. Things weren't THAT bad for me, I was just experiencing a shitload of new emotions and I was trying to define myself. I felt hated so I wrote under the assumption that I was a plague.
The next year brought a lot of new things into my life. Such as... real friends. I had a handful of friends I would talk to, but I never saw them and we didn't do anything. That all changed. I was taking high school courses, I was getting recognition, I was fairly well-liked and I made new friends and bonded closer to the ones I had. That said, my poetry reflected hints of optimism compared to previous works, but I was still tainted with my own self-loathing. I hated that I wasn't good enough for myself intellectually or physically. I was desperately trying to mask what I needed to change instead of changing.
Want to chronicle my life as a raging middle school kid bitching about nonsense?
http://www.xanga.com/jokestr2003

Freshman year arrived and I had a whole new life, including a girlfriend that set me on the right course and is still with me today. She helped me to see the better side of me and influenced my life positively in nearly every aspect. No longer was I writing about what I hate about myself. I was observing the world, exploring its design and critiquing the infrastructure of our being. I was no longer a vehicle for self-mutilation and angst; I set my sights on establishing a relationship between the world and myself. How I would respond to the way it functions. That's when I wrote some of my most optimistic works, as well as "The Positivist."

When I became a Sophomore, I was feeling empty from that wave of inspiration that came about me. I felt like I was desperately trying to replicate what I feared was the peak of my imagination, that I had covered everything my mind was capable of exploring. I sought inspiration from everything, and there was a lot of downtime. But I pressed on. My work was noticeably darker than the year before, but not in the immature, adolescent way that it was in middle school. I was looking at the world from a nihilists view, an absurdist even, maybe. My subjects covered the downfalls of mankind, the bleakness of the future and the negative overpowering the positive in nature and beyond. It was about godlessness and faithlessness and declaring myself an individualist. Not that I wasn't before, but now I was exploring the things that made me that way.

This school year, I came to the realization that I had built of a worthy collection of poetry from years of growth and change and struggle. Right when the year set off, I put together my book, "The Positivist and Other Poems" and sought to reach out to others and establish an audience. I wanted to show friends, family and strangers just who I was and what I had to say to the world. I set up my poetry reading (See the video at the top) and participated in a Poetry Symposium with some of the best teenage writers in Kansas City. I was interviewed by the Examiner, reported on by FOX4. I was finding a place as a writer. Still, I wanted to balance out my exposure with consistently improving writing. That's the challenge I am currently fighting--Losing to the past that got me where I am. Just because I have enjoyed small success doesn't mean I can give up, I have to keep challenging myself and exploring my psyche to continue as a writer. This is only the beginning.

Awards:
2008- Missouri State Poetry Society Winter Contest: 2nd Place: "The Positivist"
2008- Manningham Trust Poetry Society National Contest: HM9: "The Positivist"
2009- Missouri State Poetry Society Winter Contest: HM: "The Wayfarer..."
2009- FOX4 Reaching 4 Excellence Recognition
2009- Youth Poetry Symposium Participation (It wasn't a contest, but being selected to read was an honor.)