April is...

...National Poetry Month. And what better way to celebrate than to tell you all a little poetry story? As you might have guessed, it involves Angel.

Angel is a natural poet. What I mean by that is that his learning disability makes word retrieval difficult for him. So he has grown up learning to describe the words that are temporarily out of his reach. Sometimes he'll insert a word with a completely different meaning but similar sound. The effect is rather poetic.

In high school Angel discovered creative writing. It was the first academic activity he ever enjoyed. While he was still wary of reading (the dsylexia doesn't help) he found that he enjoyed poetry--especially the classics. He wrote a few poems but mostly wrote short stories. He wanted to major in English at college. In fact it was a short story that he submitted with his application that got him accepted at his college.

Somewhere during his gap year he lost his interest in creative writing and he is now majoring in communication. He seems to like public speaking. As a freshman he has spent the majority of the year learning how to write essays. Then about a week ago he sent me a poem he wrote and asked for feedback because he wanted to make it perfect. It was good but rough and somehow there was a girl involved.

The girl, as it turns out, wasn't particularly impressed but Angel has rediscovered poetry. He sent me an email the other night asking for recommendations on who he should read and did I want to send him some of my poetry? I did--of course--and today got an unsolicited compliment.