Many Children learn to read at
school where there are teachers armed with sentences and short stories. On the
other hand, I learned to read a very different way.
For as
long as I can remember, I idolized my dad like he was a God. My father, who
once wrote poetry, had a dream that I would have his passion for literature. He
adored the classic tales: Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, and Hamlet by William Shakespeare. From the time I was born, as mother has told me, my father
would read me these stories while she rocked me to sleep.
From
PreK on up into first or second grade, the mean teachers, armed with books full
of tedious sentences, tried to teach me how to read. Quite frankly, their efforts
were ample, however, they failed tremendously. I mostly learned to read from my
father. Although he never really tried to teach me, I somehow picked it up from
him. One night during one of our various bedtime story readings, I just picked
up the book and started reading it. It couldn’t have been that I memorized it
because we were reading one of my Dr. Seuss books I had gotten the night
before. That was the event that started it all.
I still
have that yearning to read that my dad gave me, however, my reading tasted have
changed. I no longer enjoy the long, high level reading books from my
childhood. Now, it seems like I cannot get enough of Stephen King, poetry from
various authors such as Robert Frost, and horror love stories such as Twilight
and The Vampire Diaries.
After
learning to read, I then wandered into my father’s world full of poetic prowess
and imaginative ability to touch on both light and dark subjects pertaining to
life in and of itself. I began with writing your typical A-B-A-B rhyme pattern
poems. Shortly after that I began tying real life events and feelings into my
works. Although I haven’t one a poetry contest, my works have been heard and
adorned by people all around me. My father is one of my biggest fans, followed
by my supportive mother. My poems now consist of the dark, sinister aspects of
life. I fancy myself as a writer of horrific poetry. No one can really put
their finger on one certain subject in my poems since they all have multiple
subjects and tones.
Writing
isn’t just poetry and short stories. I was at one time in the process of
writing a novel. Of course, the idea came from my father. At the time, he was
in the process of writing his autobiography. The novel was a story about
teenage love. Unfortunately, my mother was reading a chapter in my book that
dealt with the common problems oi highschool life such as: drugs, alcohol, and suicide. Needless to say, she threw a fit and made
me rewrite half of my book. After rewriting a huge chunk of it, the book got
lost in one of my various movings.
Looking
back, I can see why my mother says many of my attributes pertaining to
literature come from my father. Everything from his undying hunger for reading
to his taste in the arts. This is just the beginning of my reading history..
Who knows? Maybe someday my face will be in a magazine or the New York Times
Book list for a Best-Selling book.
