Eric M. Petit

I was born in a small, rural farming community in far northern Vermont. I grew up in the rocks and rills of the mountains and wandered the fields and forests since I could walk. This made me a bit of a wild rascal from an early age but my adventures were restricted to my geography, not that they should have seemed so to a small child. I was the youngest by a longshot and there being no other children of my age in the near vicinity, I soon turned to books to satisfy my desire for wild roving and the longing of friends. So it was that I became the fast and dear friend of Huckleberry Finn, Frodo Baggins, Rikki Tikki Tavi and many, many others. After I had stripped the bookshelves bare one long winter night, I came upon the only book I had not yet read in the entire house and the only book of poetry my mother and father owned. A worn down copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass and thus was born my deep and abiding love of poetry in a flash and a bang. I read it cover to cover, again and again and again. I don't believe my parents had ever read it for if they had they would have either been appalled or much more interesting people on the whole. Even at that tender age I knew that poetry had come to live inside of me and would never again let me alone. I hope you enjoy these words I've written. I had no choice in the matter. They're a part of me, you see, in my blood and bones and they wouldn't stay quiet.