Greeting cards

I think that's how I first started writing poetry. I was trained at an early age to write thank you notes for everyone. The problem was finding the appropriate card for the occasion. Most cards were incredibly sappy. I found myself gravitating to blank greeting cards and collecting...like the Mary Engelbreit cards of the early 1980's...before her stuff got over produced. I developed a greeting card collection of about 200 cards. I would specially pick out each card to match the occasion or personality...and write some corny rhyme or limerick. People seemed to like them, so I continued. I never really thought of what I was doing as poetry. In fact at the time, I didn't think very highly of poets. When I thought of poets at that time, I thought of Emily Dickinson...which didn't sit well with me then. Only now am I appreciating her works more. I was more fond of riddles or puns...you know...the groaners. Most of my earlier poetry...say 25 years ago...were all rhymes. Then I started writing nonsense verse...often in rhymes...and more recently in free verse with some internal rhymes. I think writing nonsense helped me make sense of an often crazy world. Playing with words for multiple meanings is fun...as is just making words up. For a while, my nickname was "Moonshine" at open mikes. That still somewhat fits, but my work has broadened and deepened. I feel like I write about everything...that connects us in often odd ways to each other. It's not conventional, but it is real. I cover philosophy, theology, psychology....and lighter general stuff. I love exercises where I'm given a number words and told to spin a poem. I write a lot of poems...possibly 500/year recently. Most I don't share. I'm definitely an editor in progress. I'm learning to appreciate the fine art of editing...through writers, readers, poets, non-poets...anyone who will give me feedback. I'm aiming for a better edited style that's incredibly loose and free, yet real and accessible...in my own unique voice. Don't know how that's going to happen...but I feel like it's already beginning... It's strange to think that writing poetry started with greeting cards...but...hmm...maybe that's not quite true. Even when I was nine or ten, I liked riddles and palindrones...always reading the humor section of the Reader's Digest or Boy's Life. And I still like Bennet Cerf...whose wonderful corny pictures and verse always made me laugh as a ten year old.
"What's big, red, and eats rocks?"
"A big, red, rock eater."
This verse and picture always put me in fits of laughter during my tenth birthday party...though not everyone was amused.
So...maybe it was Bennet Cerf who got me started in poetry...