Until 2009 I had not looked at my lyrics u0026amp; poems collection in over twenty years. Of the 122 pieces most were written in the 70’s. In 1978, “Juvenile Delinquent” was published in the Belton High Literary Journal and in 1979, with the encouragement of my best friend, Darryl Davidson, I submitted “Father’s Love” in a contest at Temple High. It won. I also won a first place prize for “Best Presentation.”
Between 1982 and 1990 I created ten booklets of my work and passed them out to friends and family. One of my poems, “Nowhere”, was recorded and a few others were published in other journals.
In 1990 I ended this part of my creativity. To best describe why I stopped, I am including a part of the introduction I wrote for the last booklet.
“A musician friend tells me I write junk. A collage English teacher agreed with him. Funny I don’t really care what they think.”
Of course I did care and that was the reason I stopped writing – the main reason I always stopped writing. (See WRITTEN FIRE). I no longer take criticism personally and use it to be a better writer; however, when looking at something this old, I cannot see myself going back and trying to make them better. I want to spend my time creating something new.
The quality of these older works is a secondary issue. I wrote these at a time when I was fighting an inside battle of morality – my mistaken belief in the evilness of my homosexuality, so this work represents the suicidal self-hatred I felt during my youth.
At a time when I was constantly depressed, I could not even mention the word gay so the battle was never directly named yet the terms I used were unmistakably plain. When I talked about my “problem”, “what I am”, “wickedness”, “sin”, “the force”, or used the words “cry”, “tears”, “fool”, “death”, “hell”, or “evil”, they were almost always directed at being queer.
I’ve posted a few and in the future will add more.