I have been writing poetry since the age of twelve and created my first chapbook at the age of fourteen. After showing a few sample poems to friends and neighbors, the chapbook was relegated to a dusty drawer to disintegrate into fodder for a rat’s nest. Some of the poems were good, many I am sure were bad, but all originated from a bludgeoned or joyful heart, mine. I am almost certain the rats found them more pleasurable than any of my human readers.
Poetry distinguished me as different, especially being I was a young man so actively involved in sports (being very good by the way). It was obvious, poetry in some obscure way, frightened many people. It wasn’t the words, though I could and can still be quite acerbic and blunt, it was the stereotype of how a male at the time was perceived and judged.
I loved baseball, I could hit a golf ball a half mile, I wrestled varsity and was generally an all around athlete, but I loved poetry just a little bit more. It flowed through me and sustained me like blood.
It has been fifty years since that first chapbook visited the light. Since then, I have bled a lot of poetic blood, much of it good, much of it bad, but I can say with certainty that every drop of it was mine.
My first book of poetry, The Wolf Pack Moon, is available in paperback on Amazon. http://amzn.to/1PjFD6P
My second book of poetry, HeartWood, will be published December 2016 by QuickTurtle Books®.
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Richard Rensberry, author at QuickTurtle Books®
http://www.richardrensberry.com
QuickTurtle Books® 
Did you ‘read’ or ‘get’ the Ernest Hem quote “Writing is easy all you have to do is stand at a typewriter and breathe.” See the HBO movie w/Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman (one of her sexier, earthier roles) Hemingway and Gelhorn. Soooo worth it. About writers. Poets and the Spanish Civil War and the literary gliterary that went there to fight and write about it. There was also the volunteer troops, the “Lincoln Brigade” I just learned about them.
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Read a lot of Hemingway earlier in life. He fished near where I grew up on the Little Two Hearted River.
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Reblogged this on A Good Blog is Hard to Find and commented:
Check out Richard’s blog and his book “The Wolf Pack Moon!” -OM
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i hope you get that book on the shelves and make history! 🙂
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Congratulations!! Yes, we writers bleed all over our keyboards. Then give our heart when we offer our books for others to read.
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Wish you every success my friend! I know what you mean and believe me I still get frowns from people when they hear I want to see my poetry see the light of this world!
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I mostly get blank stares. And I wish you the best as well. Your poetry has and will continue to light the world. You have no choice when it resides within you.
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