100. Tribute

Ok this is a tribute to all those people who have helped me with my poetry from friends to teachers but I guess I’ll use a few of their names as only they know who they are It was Anthony Masters who got me started on the interests of writing in 97 during the reading festival at school I will never forget that day he showed me that I can just let my mind go and that great results can be obtained that way With the encouragement of Jane Russell my English teacher at the time I began to try my hand at writing but despite many attempts I had nothing that I felt worked properly It was not until 99 that I really got going Simon Edney a poet himself published many times gave me the excuse to use my mind he even put some of my writings in the school magazine and gave me the boost I needed By the end of 2000 thanks largely to Anthony and Simon I amassed more than 25 poems on my PC as yet none were published but I was pleased so far and looked to reach the 50 by the end of ’02 In my quest for the next land mark I found my greatest critic Ben Godsmark, a friend from school who shared his work with me I’ve never admitted it before now but while talking to him I gained many ideas some of which have been used but I will not tell you in which writings Encouraged by the competition of Tim Howard a fellow pupil and friend I passed the 50 and looked for the next mark to beat but over confidence had done me in I had burnt myself out from trying too hard and was then in my mind without any inspiration That was all changed by an ex girlfriend of mine when we split up she used her friends to spread their lies I hit back with my poetry 4 poems were written thanks to her but she has never seen any of them Growing stronger in confidence the subjects of my writings seemed to change at will I took ideas from some of my work colleagues and used some in my writings as I kept going so that by the end of 04 I had reached 75 within the time limit I set my self Beginning of 06 thanks to various sources I had attained 99 and was looking out for the century I still had none published but was looking at ways of doing so I needed to be patient as I knew that it wouldn’t come in a rush though I tried mighty hard to get it written Thanks to all those people that I have mentioned and a couple of others who I have not I have reached my primary target 100 poems of which this is the last and though I may have written them all myself I would not have done many without them