Making of a Poet: Reflections in Verse

By Deidre Alexander

Making of a Poet strikes a chord in all of us who enjoy writingand readinglanguage which lifts our thoughts to dreams and hopes beyond the humdrum reality of life. When Deidre signed into a poetry course in junior high school, she found her perceptions and imaginings awakened to realms that widened her world to new enjoyment.

Teachers and experiences in high school and college increased her appreciation of life and the world and friends about her. Recognition came in 1980 when Self-Acceptance appeared in Eddie Lou Coles
World Treasury of Great Poems, which also included Time to Dream by her aunt Olive Jean Hope. Deidres verses have also appeared in Our Western Worlds Greatest Poems (1983), Best-Loved
Contemporary Poems (1979), The Dawn of Inspiration (1999), and Our Twentieth Centurys
Greatest Poems (1982).

Deidre continues to share life and inspiration with friends in The Poetry Circle of writers near her home in northern California. Her story can be your story too.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Sep 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466945494

Deidre Alexander

Deidre Alexander has been writing all her life—first in school and later at cyberworld in “Document Control.” Born in Pennsylvania to parents of British background, she inherited their literary nature. When the family later moved to California, she found that Silicon Valley schools awakened insights during startup of the computer age, and after graduating from San Jose State University, Deidre worked in hi-tech while writing verse reflecting her social and religious experiences during thirty years. Her poems have appeared in many anthologies.

Book preview

MAKING OF A POET:

Reflections in Verse

By Deidre Alexander

Edited by J. RALPH OTTE,

B.Ed, B.A, M.A

Trafford Publishing

2012

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©

Copyright 2012 Deidre Alexander.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4669-4548-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-4550-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-4549-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012911667

Trafford rev. 09/17/2012

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Publications I’ve Appeared In

Foreword

One: Junior High School

A Couplets: The Trip to Kibbie Lake

A2                On My Way to School

B Limericks: Ten-Foot Turtle

Man from the Moon

Mysterious Hand

Boy from Troy

Little Young Pig

Ten-foot Glider

Teacher and Preacher

C Cinquain—Free Form

D Haiku

Hands—Gardening—Feathers.

E Similes, Metaphors, and Personification

cat's tail—twig yarn pencil

garbage cans—barrels

chewing gum under the counter—clay cement

spring rain—waterfall drying up summer shower

a freshly polished fender

fresh dittos

fingertips from washing dishes

the first sunny day

Two: Yosemite

01   Walking in the Woods near Crane Flat

02   By Yosemite Creek

03   Yosemite Valley Beyond Mirror Lake

15   Kibbie Lake

14    Eleanor Lake

Three: Freshman English

04   Freedom

05   Full Moon Fantasies?

06   Searching…

07   Another World

09   Summer

10   Eggs

Four: Views of the World

13   Rowing Down the Russian River

38   Since I Left School

45   Alone

47   SJSU Bowling

Five: People I’ve Known

11   My Freshman Roommate Janice

31   Mothers’ Day Barbecue

29   My Study Partner Polly

35   Polly’s 2³rd Birthday

44   Humbling

49   A Fork in the Road

52   Arriving at the Fork in the Road

41   Ode to Janice Wong

12   My Former Friend Nancy

Six: Christ Enlightens My Life

08 Christ’s Teachings

19 The Sermon on the Mount

16 Pride

17 Sacrifices

18 The Light

21 Life is a Struggle

30 Sensitivity

32 Questions

33 Sprained Ankle

34 Changed Attitudes

36 Self-Acceptance

37 Reaching Out

39 Healing

40 Psalm 139

43 God’s Way

46 Flesh vs. Spirit

48 Self-Acceptance

51 To Serve or Not to Serve

Seven: Abraham Lincoln

20 The First Seven Years

22 Changes

23 Earning a Nickname

24 Married Life

25 The Question of Romance

26 The End of Slavery

27 Military Service

28 The Valued Book

Eight: Lost Loves

42 First Love

50 Used or Abused?

Appendix

Introduction

This book started out as a standard collection of outstanding poems, some previously published in distinguished collections. When these reached my hands, it soon became clear that a wider story was begging to be told, which Deidre is