Narrative Essay About Poetry

I have been writing poetry since the 3rd grade. At age eight, I didn’t know about couplets, haikus, and limericks, I just knew that something had to rhyme. I wrote anything that popped up in my little head and formed it into a nice poem. To me, it was a nice little poem, but I wasn’t sure what others thought. I never once let anyone else read my poetry. I told myself that, “my poetry, is my poetry,” and that was final.

Although my third-grade self knew nothing about the art of writing poetry, my fifth-grade self, had a better understanding. At this age, I actually knew what a haiku and a limerick were. My teacher Mr. Reed taught me everything a fifth grader could possibly learn about poetry. He was the best English teacher I had ever had.

I would type up some sentences making sure they rhymed at the end. But when I finished typing, I would select all, and delete. The poem was not good enough for me; it didn’t seem like a winner. I went through this process for days, and days.

One day I walked up to Mr. Reed’s desk and said, “ Mr. Reed I have no idea where to start can you help me with my poem please?” He replied, “Oh Sidney, the deadline for the poetry contest was a few days ago”. My heart dropped and I just walked away. I could not believe I missed the deadline. I spent all of that time trying to write the best poem to impress everyone and I ended up just disappointing myself. Even though I was not able to participate in the contest this year, I tried again. The following school year, I had two opportunities. This time there was the Barnes and Noble contest and the Creative Communication poetry contest. I told myself I wasn’t going to make the same mistake as last year, so I wrote the deadlines down in my little black

It was a short poem about the color red and what it means to people. I turned it in two days before the deadline. I was confident that I would win or even make the top three. I wasn’t worried about the other contest. I didn’t even put any effort into the second poem. I sat down at the school computer, typed up some quick rhyming words, and turned it in.

The day came when Mr. Reed announced the results. Everyone was so anxious to find out if their poem was published in the creative communication book or if they won the Barnes and Noble contest. He announced the Barnes and Noble contest winners first. “Sidney Allen,” he shouted “certificate of participation”. It was at this moment where I gave up on poetry. This was when I realized that the amazing poetry that I thought I was writing was actually trash. I walked up to Mr. Reed’s desk to grab the piece of paper that had crushed my dreams. He just smiled at me while he continued to announce the real winners.

I put my head down on the desk, not even wanting to hear the winners of the other poetry contest. There was no doubt in my mind that my name wasn’t going to be called. All of a sudden, my friend tapped my shoulder yelling, “Sidney, Sidney he called you!” I was baffled, how could a poem I wrote in less than 10 minutes have