Sylvia, Jane,
Virginia, or Agatha
Names plenty there will be.
Charlotte, Emily,
Mary Wollstonecraft,
Classics, everywhere I see.
Isaac Asimov,
Ernest Hemingway,
H.G. Wells and Faulkner, too.
Henry James and Charles Dickens
And Voltaire with "Candide" swoon.
Homer, Shakespeare, and Bram Stoker
All around the fire dance
With Count Dracula
And George Orwell as he reads "Animal Farm."
Stephen King and Nora Roberts
Still dispute what genre's best.
Was it horror,
Was it romance
That attracted me to them?
Was it fantasy,
The promise of escaping someplace else?
"I have read too many books
To believe what I am told."

To the ones that came before me,
I must thank you for my life.
Light, amongst the wondrous pages
Of your work, came to my mind.
Through the years,
I have learned
All the bright places are dark,
And like Eyre,
"I am no bird and no net ensnares me," pal.
Was it pride or was it prejudice,
Or the "Notes from Underground?"
In the "Night"
"As I Lay Dying"
Oh, a sweet "Farewell to Arms"
"On the Road"
I learned to find
What I loved and let it **** me,
And that love that is kept quiet
Quickly turns to a tragedy.

Through "The Bell Jar" I can see
Other people passing by,
And, pen in hand, I must write
The burning truth for them to find.
But heed my words, my fellow writer,
This won't be my demise,
'Cause I know why the caged bird sings,
And like changing tides I'll rise