The Closet Poet

All my teenage life, from the moment I learnt to read English storybooks, I dreamt to be a writer of novels.

So, harbouring these hopes, I decided to minor in Journalism at Western Michigan University, the only minor I found that had a class in poetry/fiction writing. Yeay, I was now on the way to publishing my novel!

Professor Herb Scott was his name, and the first thing he asked us to write was a poem. A poem? I hate poems. I don’t understand what poems try to say. They are all very vague and abstract, although I did like William Blake’s poems that I had to learn during English Literature while in secondary school.

And he made us write poem after poem, class after class. This was absurd! What could I possibly achieve by writing poems?  When was the fiction writing going to start? And worse of all, I had to read them out in front of all those Americans.

I was a really shy person. Would they laugh at my English? I don’t know how to write poetry. It’s not what I signed up for! But fortunately for me, I do love the English language. It’s the only language I can read and write in fluently.

I thank my mother and my aunts for buying and borrowing me English storybooks in my childhood days. And thanks to some very close classmates who embarrassed me with their very good English, I felt challenged to improve and started borrowing storybooks from them. And I read and read.  Yes, that was what we used to do… We’d hold them under the desk during class. I’d hide storybooks inside school textbooks so that I could fool Mom when she thought I was studying in my bedroom.

But then again, what I did know about writing poetry? I didn’t understand most of the poems I had to read in school. Our teacher had to explain each word and the meaning of each line to us.

Now, back to the Professor. He even had the cheek to keep giving me A’s. What?! Exactly my feelings when I saw those A’s.

At last, we had one chance to write a short story.  But this poetry class tortured me for years, even after I graduated and went on to have a career in television, away from poetry.

Now and then, throughout the past 20 years, I would write a sprinkling of words.

I could not figure out what purpose it had in my life.

Now, many people go to university, but never ending up working in the field of their study.

Not for me. I needed to have a meaning to it. It boggled me for years.

I flirted with the idea of publishing poetry, then held back at the thought of who would buy them, also, friends would give me the stupefied look when I mention that. I thought about it, and shove it away into space. Then I thought about it again.

Coming Soon...

"Then True Love Comes" was the name I decided upon for the book. It reflects the perfect and warm end to a movie -- if our life were a movie, how will it end? As a Producer & Director who intends to make feature films, I had an epiphany to present this poetry book as examples and scenes from my life of:

1. how we are the hero and heroine of our movie

2. responding to your calling

3. the adventure that beckons and the roadblocks that you face

4. then finally, overcome defeat and return with the elixir

It will be truly unique in concept. Instead of another "how to" self-help book, each poem is a scene from my life which you can relate to as a scene in the journey of the heroine throughout the movie. Then, be inspired to ask yourself, what kind of ending do I want for the movie of my life?

Get The Closet Poet Out!