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FIRST PLACE
A Writer's Genesis
By Fred Venturini
Patoka, Illinois
I was destined to be a doctor or a
scientist. My supreme intelligence, flawless memory,
ability to connect with
people and ideas all but assured me of that fate. Doctors
are the ones that make the money, scientists are the
ones who become famous and change the world permanently.
My absolute conviction that this was my destiny actually
clouded my future, made me bitter, arrogant, and bleak.
Doctors may have the money, but they also have a pager
that goes off hour upon hour—the best doctors,
and of course I thought I would be one of the best,
would always be on call. Doctors suffered failing marriages,
or worse, marriages based on cash influx. Doctors went
to school for a zillion years . . . or at least it
seemed like a zillion when trudging through high school
as a freshman.
Scientists on the other hand needed luck. In order
to change the world, a scientist must stumble onto
something great, and make it accessible to everyone.
I thought to myself . . . how many noble prize winners
can I name? None was the answer. I thought about the
great inventions, the great scientists. There was a
real lack of luster in the names of Thomas Edison and
Albert Einstein, at least to me. I was following a
path without passion, without desire. I knew, as everyone
else did, that I had the capability to advance deeply
into either field. But without the will, how far would
I have gotten?
This is a question that will never be answered because
as the second semester to my freshman year began, I
finally found something I could sink my teeth into—challenging
and engaging, but strangely enough, I didn’t
take to it like a duck to water. I put off the inevitable,
which was my transformation from a man of science to
a man of the arts.
Miss C was the teacher, and she would be despondent
if I referred to her as anything else, and the assignment
was turn in one poem. Just one. She would read them
and make sure that no one had to go through the embarrassment
of claiming they were the author. And it would make
for a fun game of everyone in the class trying to guess
who wrote what. She gave us a week to turn it in. I
of course shelved the ridiculous project. I would have
none of it. I wouldn’t work on something like
a poem. Where’s the reward? Where’s the
challenge? Rhyme a couple of lines, get some girl to
love you, sit under trees and feel the wind and sun
pansy crap is what poetry was. I would have none of
it.
Then she reminded us a day before the assignment that
anyone not turning one in would receive a fat zero,
which would all but guarantee that I couldn’t
make an A in the class.
This I would not put up with. Yet my insides still
fought against the poetry. There wasn’t one single
solitary idea that I felt was worth putting onto paper.
I didn’t sit up all the night thinking either.
I allowed myself about two minutes to reflect on a
possible poem in the shower, and then thought about
it for a few minutes as I drifted away to sleep that
night.
Once I woke up that morning, the alarm in my head was
ringing louder than the one on my desk. If I didn’t
complete the assignment, I wouldn’t make an A.
I would lose my near perfect GPA. My mother would freak.
Yet still nothing came. The morning seemed to fly by,
as time always does when dreading something. It wants
to catapult you all the closer to your dreaded fate
by never stopping, always ticking away, bringing you
closer and closer.
I played basketball in PE. I did some math work, and
aced a biology test. We ate lunch, my slacker friend
Bucky reflecting on how he did his poem in two minutes
and asking me what the big deal was.
Thankfully, study hall was before English class. I
opened my notebook, intent on finishing the assignment,
wondering how Bucky got his done so quickly, and wondering
why a smart kid such as myself couldn’t put a
couple of words together.
Then it hit me—not quite an epiphany, more like
logic taking hold. I cared about the assignment. She
would of course give A’s to everyone who put
out a creative effort, but I wanted more than that.
I demanded the perfection that I knew I could produce.
If I was going to do a poem, it had to be a great one
because there was pressure on me to do things better
then everyone else in the classroom. I realized that
a sub par poem would open the door to ridicule, and
worse yet, damage my confidence.
But I didn’t want to be a flowery writer. My
goal wasn’t to write poems so girls would fall
in love with me. I wanted to make my poem dark and
mysterious, like the Stephen King books that I had
read since grade school, my grandmother handing them
to me with crazed spines, demanding to know what I
thought of the book (and thus guaranteeing I would
read it in order to discuss it with her). So I began
to write. I started with something sinister, remembering
how scary it was to walk through a small town at night
. . . The night was corpse-quiet, the small town was
asleep.
This was the first line of poetry that I had ever written,
and once my horrible penmanship began to ink words
onto the paper, it couldn’t be stopped. Ten minutes
passed and the poem grew into one and a half pages,
versed and completely rhyming. I had written about
a man taking a walk and striking up a debate with a
stranger. The punchline at the end was that this stranger
was Satan himself. I always liked a bit of a gutshot
at the end. King’s short stories kept me up nights
with final lines that warranted two or three rereads,
producing a prickle of the skin with each one.
So a day of suffering for ten minutes of work. I still
didn’t know if it was good enough, but I turned
it in all the same, hoping to salvage my grade. I had
no idea if it was good or bad. Miss C read the poem.
Once the final line had fallen . . . “and he
whispered as he disappeared, my name is Lucifer” .
. . there was a good ten seconds of silence as the
stunned class tried not only to allow the poem to sink
in, but to figure out who wrote the poem, and for a
freshman it was delicious and dark, one of my favorites
to this very day.
Slowly, all eyes turned to me. My friend Bucky was
the first to speak: “Man, that is some screwed
up Satan worshipping crapola right there!” Coming
from him, it was complimentary and affirmed me as the
author. Miss C muttered “very good” and
read the next one.
I caught myself smiling. The attention garnered by
the work continued to buzz during the next couple of
readings. Miss C told me that she expected the same
quality of work next week. She always knew how to push
my buttons, how to motivate me. I was her gentle prodding
that had me eventually end up with a degree in English
and a computer with tattered pieces of novel, story,
and poem, some good, some bad, all lovingly crafted.
In the grand scheme of things, all of it was inspired
by her and my grandmother, who didn’t care what
I succeeded in as long as I succeeded. Turns out, as
an avid reader and the one who had me reading seemingly
before I could crawl, she was quite pleased when she
sensed my duty to science was morphing into a passion
for writing.
Then I decided to try a love poem, as I, like any good
high schooler, was in love. It was a pure metaphor,
how fleeting love is like a gust of wind. I aptly titled
it Gust of Life, and Miss C broke into tears as she
read it. Again, all eyes turned to me. Some of the
girls in the class were misty eyed. The glory of that
moment persists to this very day, as does the horrible
habit of procrastination . . . however, nowadays I
call it complete confidence in my ability since I can
wait ‘til the last second and still come through!
It was those two readings that made writing appealing
to me. I could seek perfection without the pressure
of an operating table. I could gain the fame and fortune
that science and medicine couldn’t provide. And
as I became a reading glutton, I learned that it is
authors who are quoted the most, who shape our world
with the attention they pay to their craft and with
the inspiration that they instill in others.
I strive for greatness and perfection in the written
word. Fate may dictate that I cannot attain them, but
fate cannot keep me from trying. It is indeed fate
who put me on this path—destroying my career
in medicine to pursue the perfect words, the ones that
slip through my fingers everytime I try to snatch them
up and delicately put them in a tapestry for you, the
reader.
It is fate that had me as a young freshman, finding
himself writing in study hall, hoping to dazzle the
teacher, the students, and most difficult of all, himself
with but a few precious minutes to compose a masterpiece.
I remember hearing nothing but my own pulsating thoughts,
wearing the number two pencil down the very nub.
I remember day one, my first day making a poem in a
study hall. It is as vivid a memory as my first kiss—and
while nowadays kisses are hit and miss, I haven’t
stopped writing since.
Copyright (c) 2003 for the
author, all rights reserved.
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