One of my first poems was about frogs getting run over by cars during a rain shower and the noise it made: "squish and then pop!" I was so proud of my little ditty, that I drew a frog and underneath it, I printed my silly poem. I framed my masterpiece and hung it on the wall in my childhood bedroom. That was back in the late 1970s. By 1981, after basic training in the Air Force, I was fluently writing poetry. I'd be tickled by a little saying, or the lyrics of a song, and from a little idea would evolve what I considered a poetic gem. I had several journal books that had once been empty, but were now full, then another was needed. And so it went for a decade . . . me writing poetry and having a few published. I then took a correspondence course with THE INSTITUTE OF WRITING FOR CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS. It was a correspondence course that lasted four year. I had good success. The next decade had me subscri...