Finding My Writing Identity

 

 My Personal Journey To Claiming Writer Identity

The development of my identity as a writer did not occur as some kind of overnight revelation. It was more like a gradual metamorphosis, resulting from a life-long immersion in writing and responding to the call of words. Words are something I love very much. A major influence in this area was my father who was not a writer, but, someone who certainly loved words and honed the art of playing with them. He was riddler, puzzler with a pronounced ability for wordplay He fostered my close attention to the power words possessed. I willingly took his gift and used it to drive my desire to write, which emerged quite early and never receded.

 As a result, I have clung tenaciously to writing as if it were a safe harbour in a storm. Looking back, I was clearly a writer under construction. I just kept writing until the words got better. Many years later, calling myself a writer felt more comfortable.

I still strongly recall writing a poem about ‘Spring’ in my Grade 4 year of primary school and my fellow classmates urging me to share it with our teacher, Mr.Manzie. Mr.Manzie duly asked me to share my words with the whole class. Following the reading, they spontaneously clapped. I felt validated as a probationary poet. All these years later, I have no recall of the words of that ancient poem, but I have never forgotten how it made me feel- and I certainly wanted more of that.  My poet’s heart had awoken.

My writing identity has gradually been constructed from decades of writing experiences, writing projects, a lifetime of teaching and reading, coupled with an insatiable curiosity. I have moved from being a teacher who wrote, to a writer who teaches. The moment of this transformation was naturally quite imprecise. I began to progressively embrace my change of identity. I now see myself as a lifelong writer. It is part of who I have become.

So the question I often ask young writers is ’When are you a writer?’

 One of the best responses I have had to this question came from a young writer who told me –‘I’m a writer when I climb into a big tree in our backyard, open my notebook and write about the things I can see.’ 

Sometimes identity is bestowed upon us by others… 

I encountered a curious child in a school I was visiting just outside Adelaide in South Australia. He walked by me while I sat in the office reception area and stared intently, before enquiring, ‘Hey mister, are you the Poemster?’  So, sitting in the soft shadows of a winter afternoon I suddenly had acquired my identity. It can be like that sometimes. That newly coined word –poemster so impressed me, I used it in the title of one of my poetry anthologies.

On another occasion while exiting my local supermarket a boy in the company of his dad suddenly announced –'Hey dad, that’s Alan Wright- he’s a poet!’ Not sure if his dad was impressed but I certainly walked a little taller as I returned to my car after my hunting and gathering expedition.

 My writers notebooks have been part of my writing life for more than forty years. They represent my membership card into the writer’s club. With every successive entry in those notebooks, my writing identity has been quietly forged. They now stand as tangible proof of my extensive journey through the writing terrain. Proof that I was here. All my published efforts started as tentative entries upon these pages. It pleases me when kids ask to take a look inside them. I can honestly say, that like you,- I am a writer.

Alan j Wright