Preface

When I was a student at OSU, I had the good fortune of attending a week-long workshop, led by Billy Collins. During that time, he gave us a ton of exercises, just to get us writing. I forget the poet he made us emulate in this particular case, but the rules were that the poem had to begin with the phase "When I was a child," and had to end with an exclamation. An interesting progression, beginning with a small voice and building to a loud declaration to the world.

Since Alex and I watched Amadeus last night, I figure this is a good segue. Below is the poem I wrote for that workshop.