13 Comments
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Angela Joy's avatar

Wow 13 year old you! 🙌. I love that you picked up that brown notebook as a response to your world being pulled from under you. The first poem I wrote was, I think, about my big sister’s appendix scar…how weird is that?! 🤣

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

I’d like to see that.

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Angela Joy's avatar

😆

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26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

The bravery of you, sharing a poem from your thirteen-year-old self! She was eloquent.

I have a folder-full of the poems I wrote in my teens. Will any of them see the light of day? I'd ... need to go back and consider. Dearly love that girl, however.

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

Go look and consider sharing. I never thought I would share but it’s actually been fine,

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Kathryn Anna Marshall's avatar

Great poem! I have mine from around 15 or so and I'm amazed how bold I was with language. I wonder if it's because we were more immersed in it - school was terrible but perhaps that atmosphere fostered something?

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

That’s a good thought. My school was appalling, I hated it immensely, maybe that and a lack of censure as a teenager made the words more bold.

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Emily's avatar

It’s interesting hearing about when and why you started writing poetry. I really like the poem you wrote. Much better than what I could have written at 13 or even now! I think I wrote one poem in my teens and I’ve not seen it since.

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

Thank you. It was a major departure for me from drawing and colouring in horses heads. And I’m pleased you like it, I’m really not sure about it.

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Rita Ott Ramstad's avatar

You are brave to share that 13-year-old's poem! Good for you! Now I'm feeling like getting up in the attic to find my first poems, and wondering what it might do for all of us to share our earliest writings with each other. Maybe we'd all have more compassion for the teens in the world, remembering how big everything could feel, especially when at the mercy of forces you cannot control.

I first wrote a poem at about the same age, but it was for an assignment for school. It was the most gentle invitation into poetry--my teacher had us bring in an image we liked (for any reason) and write 3 sentences as full of description as we could make them. It was so easy! And fun! And it didn't have to rhyme! I felt a whole writing world open, and I've always been so grateful for Mrs. Marchbank and that assignment.

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

That sounds like a fab assignment.❤️ My very first one was a rewriting of the Beatles Help, we had to use a tune and write brand new words. I don’t have a copy sadly, and don’t remember it, thing; do remember writing it and liking it. My classmates thought it was an awful tune to choose as they’d all used modern songs. I quite liked my English teachers.

Get up in the attic and find those early writings. We should embrace our outer selves.

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Lisa Andradez's avatar

That's a fantastic first poem from 13yr old you!!

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

You are too kind.

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