A Poet?

Several times recently I’ve been told I’m a poet.  I’m flattered although I don’t believe it for a second.  What I might be willing to accept is that my writing can sometimes have a poetic quality, occasionally even being like poetry.  I so respect real poets.  To be able to convey an idea, feeling or emotion in just a few words is something I haven’t mastered.  It’s HARD to find just the right word or short sequence of words, especially when you can use 10 or 20 to say the same thing, like I tend to do.   My poor husband has been dealing with this for years:

Me:  “That tool with the removable ball on the end that you flip around and it goes reeh-er, reeh-er, reeh-er and you screw things in or unscrew things depending on what you want.”

My husband:  “Ratchet screwdriver.”

Right, that.  So I’ll just sit back and read and admire Jeannine Atkins or Kristy Dempsey or Alma Fullerton or Mary Quattlebaum.  And be grateful to Jen Bailey for pointing out some poetic elements (that, honestly, I didn’t even recognize — another reason I’m obviously not a poet) in my novel Quaking.  I’ll try to be more cognizant of poetic language in my writing, which may be challenging given that in my current teen road trip novel the main character’s language is poetic in the style of, say, Al Pacino.  But there’s always room for some poetic language, right?