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MEET THE AUTHOR Tom Spencer, born in July of 1943, grew up in the City of the Century--Gary, Indiana, where his eighth grade English teacher introduced him to the poetry of Blake, Longfellow, Hughes, Auden, Tennyson, and other poets of all persuasions. His fertile mind locked on to this avenue of escape from the toils of a structured education. Tom graduated high school in 1961 and went directly into the US Army. That same year he met and started his forty-three year courtship of an astute student of the theater, a lady named Kathleen Correnti (Spencer). Active in his adopted town of Lowell, Indiana, Tom is well known for his community involvement in such organizations as the Chamber of Commence, American Legion, Retail Merchant's Committee, Lowell Oktoberfest, and Friends of The Library. Tom has belonged to many writers' groups and workshops in the Lake Porter area. He has published two collections of poetry: Word Castles, a collection of 186 poems in various forms, and America on Fire, co-authored and self published by Jas Singh PhD and Tom in December 2001, a collection of poems related to the aftermath of 9/11. Tom is an active member of The Indiana Federation of Poetry Clubs, The National Federation of Poetry Societies, and The Northwest Indiana Poetry Society. He is currently active in two writers' workshops at the Hobart Barnes and Noble: "Write on Hoosiers" and "The Writer's Expressions." Interview with Tom Spencer Which poets provided the greatest inspiration for your own writing? Please explain how and why? Those poets of the nineteenth century studied in an eighth grade English class were probably my greatest influence. My teacher was Mrs. Alice Peterson. Her love of poetry was evident in the exuberance in which she taught the subject. Besides Whitman, Emerson, Poe and Dickenson, she introduced me to Blake and Wordsworth. I later encountered Ogden Nash and Lewis Carroll. Mrs. Peterson stressed the importance of reading a wide range of literature to increase your understanding of each individual poem. I would say that the greatest poet I have studied is Mrs. Alice Peterson. She may not have written poetry, however, poetry was her very soul and she passed that on to her students. You've mastered so many poetry forms. Please explain how your study progressed from one form to the next. I wrote rhymed and free form for many years and found the Haiku and Villanelle when I returned to college late in life. I enjoyed the discipline that it took to write structured poetry and from that point on I sought out forms to write for the discipline that they offer in the use of words and rhythms to create poetry. I also took a course from an independent poetry teacher, Sharon Palmeri, in the late nineties and she had a teachers guide to poetry forms that has been a treasure of information for the different forms. Which form was the most difficult for you to master? I would say that the sonnet was, and still is, the most difficult for me to write, however, I find it the form I most often return to as a base for other forms. How old were you when you wrote your first poem? Probably thirteen or fourteen. As a teenager with all the hormones that went with puberty, I found a need to express myself without talking to others. Poetry seemed to fulfill that purpose as a catharsis, a vent for confusion and an avenue of understanding. In the Word Castle poems, what span of time did it take to write them? The poetic activities in the online Writers Village University were the impetus for Word Castles. Most of the poems were written after I joined WVU in January 98 and the first publication of Word Castles in 2001. Every poem is a lifetime in composition. The written form took about two years to collect from past efforts and newly conceived works. Do you have to be in a creative mindset to write poetry or can you write poems at will? I have one or two poems working in my head at all times as I observe the world I live in and its influences on the rhythm of life. I find it difficult to deviate from what I am working on to create impromptu poetry. What advice would you give a person who wants to learn to write poetry? Read poetry--read poetry of all genres. Dead or alive, poets live in their work and they are your teachers. Word Castles
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