At the age of 3 or 4, I wrote my first poem, Leaf. It was about a leaf on its way to the ground. For my tender years it was fairly advanced since I didn't come into contact with an actual tree until I was at least 5. In fact, I had no idea that leaves grew on trees or even what a tree was. Nor did I have any sense of the changing seasons, raised in a place where nature was limited to flies, rats, worms and weeds. Maybe I saw the tree on TV or in a picture book.
Where does this impulse to create come from? As children, do we all start from the same place only to have the urge knocked out of us? Growing up, it never occurred to me to become an artist, writer or poet. As a working-class child I had no role models or parents with ambitions, either for themselves or for their offspring. Not once did I visit a (free) art gallery or museum. The notion that art could be a job was ludicrous, yet it was my destiny.
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