Sarala's poem "Serenity" won second place in the June 2018 issue.
She is a sophomore at Bnos Yaakov in Brooklyn, NY.
This is her first entry into The Bedford Ledger.
She is a sophomore at Bnos Yaakov in Brooklyn, NY.
This is her first entry into The Bedford Ledger.
Tell is a little about yourself.
I've lived in Brooklyn, NY all my life. I'm the youngest of an older family, meaning all my siblings are waaaay older than me. I've had nieces and nephews since I was nine weeks old, so I was kinda born into the aunt role. A lot of my writing has been influenced by my position in my family, and my relationships with my family members. I play guitar and compose songs as well. When did you first start writing poetry? I wrote my first poem in sixth grade, but I didn't actually know anything about poetry. I mostly strung together sentences that rhymed and sort of made sense rhythmically. But my poems never really spoke to me, and I gave it up eventually. So I guess my real first poem was in ninth grade, when I actually began to learn what poetry really was. Who or what inspires your love for writing/poetry? I always expressed myself through writing, whether through journals or short stories. Descriptive writing was kind of my "thing", and I'd sometimes just sit down and write a paragraph describing a scene I'd just read about, how the character was feeling, the sounds, the smells. That's what brings a writing to life for me. I think it's this need for expression that makes me love poetry so much, for what better way is there to express yourself? |
Do you have any favorite poets or poems that you like to read or have influenced your style of writing?
The books Love that Dog and Hate that Cat by Sharon Creech changed the way I looked at poetry. What I said before about expressing myself, I never knew how to do that with poetry. Reading these books opened my eyes to the different ways I could use poetry as my voice. Give us some background on your writing - do you only write poetry? Do you write for pleasure? Have you won any other contests? I used to write mainly short stories or random paragraphs. I tried to start a short book once or twice as well, but I never got too far. But in the past year I've written mainly poetry and music. I won a small award earlier this year for a descriptive poem. What was the inspiration or the story behind your winning poem? The poem is about overcoming mental illness. I have a friend who struggles with a mental illness, and I've read a lot of books recently on schizophrenia, PTSD, and other illnesses. |