The other day I received a phone call, completely out of the blue, from a very, very shy child in the Chicago area. She had been scouring the internet apparently looking for poetry and came across the below poem I had written for my mom for mother’s day quite some time ago. She began asking me questions like,

“How do you go about writing poetry?”

“How do you come up with the rhymes?”

I was being interviewed by a fellow writer and I was elated!

I answered her questions, suggesting a great place to find rhymes is RhymeZone.com (a website I frequent often while writing Hamilton Troll stories) and the thesaurus when I am trying to rhyme a word that either doesn’t work or has no relevant rhymes. I encouraged her to keep writing and before hanging up asked her how she heard about me. That is when she told me the name of the poem she liked. It had been so long since I wrote it, I had to go back and find it.

Less than a week later, I received another call from that child. She asked a few more questions then told me she had written a poem. I asked her if she would like to read it for me, expecting a Dr. Seuss or Roses are red, kind of poem and was absolutely BLOWN AWAY by her poem.

It was outstanding and deep! Major Deep!

This child showed me a talent I don’t even think I possess.

I wish I would have recorded that call. I wish she would send me a copy via email. I wish I could stay in touch with her and follow her as she grows up and watch her literally WOW the people in her life with this amazing talent for writing. WHEN you get published, and with talent like that, you WILL… please let me know.  I am PROUD of you! And I KNOW I had NOTHING to do with it.

Here’s the poem she liked…

Award Winning Author Kathleen J Shields educational books hamilton troll

Mothers Day – two years before she truly became an angel. I miss you mom.

If you like poems, check out my new poetry book, A Rhyme for Everything