I feel like a personal welcome is in order, so Greetings my friend! If you are reading this then you have joined an ever-widening group of people to whom I have shared my work.
I started writing poems when I was very young, no older than 8. Both my father and mother wrote poems and were published in regional publications in the ‘70s so it seemed like a very normal thing to me. As time went on, I would often go years without writing anything and then I would see something that would inspire a poem, and typically I could finish the entire story within an hour or less. As time went on, I really didn’t consider myself a poet at all; what I felt strongly about was telling stories that rhymed. I’ve dabbled in music and love it, but don’t feel I have a real talent in it. But that love taught me that words are powerful, but even more memorable when they have a rhythmic quality to them. So I wrote, and continue to write, many stories that I have rarely shared. On the few occasions I did share them, they were very well-received and I was encouraged to write more. So I did.
I was at a concert with a friend when the inspiration struck me for “When I Fight for My Last Breath”. From that poem came others and before long I was fortunate to have a wonderful magazine, Prescott Living, publish a number of my poems. And then another beautiful magazine, Southwest Art Source featured me in a small article along with one of my poems and the possibility of a book began to be discussed. So that’s how The World According to U (poems about redemption) came to be.
Now, there’s a lot going on in the title. First of all, one of my trusted friends who I shared my writing with mentioned that much of my work involved redemption and the ability to transform. The continual message that it’s never too late to change. Another friend commented on how so many of my poems/stories focus on how we each see things based on your own personal perspective. In fact, my style of writing has very little punctuation and capitalization, all done so the reader can view the story through their own personal interpretation. And, another friend mentioned that instead of YOU, I should use U as the letter U signifies the ability to change your course. It’s always possible to make a U-turn when you feel you are going the wrong direction. So, this book could never have been done without the support and guidance of a few people close to me. Without them, I would have mostly kept my poems and stories to myself.
I’m not writing this book to become famous or wealthy. I wrote this book because I honestly believe that many people will be able to relate to a number of my stories within it. Some of those people may actually be struggling with the themes themselves. My dream is for people to be able to use these stories as a way to open up a conversation about subjects we rarely talk about. But these subjects, in my opinion anyway, are the essence of life itself. To understand the true gift this life offers, we need to embrace all of it—the bad as well as the good, the sadness as well as the joy—and discuss it honestly.
Thank you again for taking the time to read my book, The World According to U . I hope you will enjoy the stories and poems, and mostly, I hope they may start a conversation with the people you love.
Tod Christensen
The Life Poet
Derek –
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