Unpublished Poetry
I Remember: A reflection on the hidden lessons taught by an exceptional teacher
At the 2017 Royal Palm Literary Award Banquet, author Virginia Nygard won First Place for her unpublished poem, I Remember. Each year at the RPLA Banquet, authors experience the joy of earning accolades for all the hard work that is often done in the privacy of the home with little to no recognition. We’re showcasing the best of the best with our First Place winners spotlight. Not only does RPLA recognize extraordinary talent, but we’re giving readers an opportunity to sample excerpts from the winning entries.
Virginia Nygard
Virginia Nygard is a member of NLAPW and Academy of American Poets, FWA Group Leader, Regional Director, and RPLA recipient. She has published novels, novellas, short stories, and poetry.
Click here to read I Remember.
An interview with Virginia:
Q: Where do you get your story ideas?
A: In my novels, novellas, short stories and poetry, ideas come from everywhere. They arise from issues dear to my heart, from observing people and nature, and from the world of my imagination. Whether it’s a flower growing through a crack in the sidewalk, a chemical experiment gone wrong, Sandhill Cranes, a stalker psychopath, or the fairies who lived in my mother’s flower garden, nothing escapes my collection of possibilities.
Q: Anything in particular about your award-winning RPLA entry that you’d like to share?
A: “I Remember,” the poem that was awarded first place in the 2017 RPLA competition, was inspired in part by deep divisions in our country, particularly our attitudes toward people of differing cultures and races. One of my first teachers, a young African-American woman, left a lasting impression of dignity, grace, and kindness and was a role model for how I would treat children when I became a teacher.
Q: Who do you credit with inspiring your writing?
A: My mother read poems and stories to me at bedtime from the Book of Knowledge with its intricate old-fashioned illustrations that fascinated me. I believe hearing stories, then reading them led to my desire to write. Through the school year, the teacher I mentioned collected illustrated stories each of us had created, and in June, gave us our own anthologies in brilliant construction-paper covers bound with shiny brass fasteners. Mine was bright red! I was hooked. Support and encouragement from other teachers led me to also contribute to school newspapers and yearbooks.
Q: Any tips for new writers?
A: Keep an open mind. (A good idea for all of us.) Read. Everything. Magazines for writers are valuable sources of learning your craft, as are webinars, conferences, and other presentations such as offered by FWA. Join a writer’s group. Remember, the feedback you get may reflect how your reader will interpret what you wrote whether you intended it or not. If you feel the need to say, “What I meant was…” say “Thank you” instead, go home, reconsider, and rewrite! Work on your vocabulary. (I love etymology!) Maybe you’re not up to reading the Oxford English Dictionary as I did once while recuperating, however, while repeating “Hot, hot, hot” is appropriate in a reggae song, use a thesaurus if you’re writing anything else! And to paraphrase FWA’s Mary Ann de Stefano, follow your heart’s call to write whether you publish or not. Write because it brings joy to you and those with whom you share it because it’s therapeutic and uplifting to have creative self-expression in your life. Write on!
I don’t have a website, but the curious may catch up with my writings at my blogspot:
http://dialogondialogue.wordpress.com
