I’ve always seen free verse as a method for prose writers to break up sentences into lines in such a way that their work appears as a poem.  Then they would be called poets!  In most cases, I still stand as self-admittedly, poetically penchant… she says with heartfelt apologies to the free-verse world of poets.

The problem with being so subjective, of course, is that happenstance invariably uncovers someone or something that completely annihilates the bias.  I admit, too, that many talented free versers have impressed me with their writing over the years.  There are several that I’ll proudly highlight at Nan’s Morsels.  My friend Martie is one of the best.

Martie Odell-Ingebretsen joined the Netpoets community in September of 1999.  She has since graced the poetry boards with nearly 1500 of her original poetic works, and is now one of the premier free verse poets online.  Martie gives the term “imagery” new meaning, as each of her poems evokes a resplendent vision in her reader’s eye.
I can’t rightly tell Martie’s story any better than she herself can, so in her own words:

~~

Martie Odell-Intebretsen

I was born and lived in Pasadena, California, in the same house with my parents and my brother until I went off to find myself at UC Berkeley in 1962.

When I was a child, I had difficulty learning how to read. In those years of the late ’40s, there was no name that I knew for why words and numbers turned around in my head and came out “wrong”. I found that instead of thinking in words, I thought in pictures. That may be the reason why my poetry is filled with imagery. Thanks to a wonderful neighbor lady who was also a teacher and the mother of my best friend, one summer when I was 7, I learned how to read. I’ve not put a book down since. Many years later I realized that I was dyslexic.

My father had been a writer before I was born. I still have some of his stories that were published in the Saturday Evening Post. He liked to help me with my writing assignments in school.  Then, in a sociology class in high school, I was assigned to write a synopsis of two books that were part of the class. Instead of writing paragraphs, I wrote poetry. I got an A+ on both papers. Thus was born the realization that I too could write.

I’ve been told that many of my poems are lyrical.  That may be due to my music background in piano and voice.  Before poetry, they were my way of expressing the volcano of thought and feeling that ached to be expressed.  I still have the same piano that I played when I was 5.

My first child, Michelle, was born in 1965.  I was 23 and in my last year of college, with a major in English Literature and a deep belief that one day I would become an important writer.  When Michelle was born, that changed … all thoughts of being anything but a good mother left me.  I didn’t believe that it was possible to love that much.  I was awe-struck by everything about her.  Her first smile was the cause of my greatest joy.

Then, in 1974, my life changed with such violent suddenness, that I didn’t know how I would ever feel joy again.  Michelle died that year.  She was 8 years old.  I had not ever stopped writing poetry, but my poetry changed then and I started writing poetry to express my grief and my growth … and so began the documentation of the way my life changed and became joyful.  My writing was a backbone for my life as a wife, mother of two boys, now men; grandmother of two girls and a boy, and 35 years of early childhood teaching.  But more importantly, it has been an expression of who I am.

In 2006, a tumor was removed from my brain.  I already knew how tenuous life was, but with this health- issue, I understood even more than I had, how very special and beautiful it IS.   My vision and the words of poetry that I wrote after this time have reflected an attitude of appreciation and gratitude far surpassing what I already knew.  My poetry has always been a reflection of the inner and more intuitive me.  Nature and the beauty around me has been my metaphoric tool….thus, the imagery.

Although I have written metered and rhymed poetry, free verse has usually been the carrier of my words, from heart, to paper.  So…. with all that I am… I would like to be first, a poet.

Dear Michelle

I have been given cause to think of you
this summer day      this summer way
just cooling we
into the time when precious memory takes me
to your birth in fall

All the year I’ve worn my heart
in comfort drawn to wait the times that bring you near
just not expecting           now

But here you are wrapping around my years
growing with me
not tears     but moments spent in learning trees
and little pieces of  poured cement  with your name
even the dogs bark
is a thing  you would have loved

So this day I know you see the pool we built
the year you died
as if to hide the tears in the joyous splash
your brothers made into what was a hill
where dogs remarked
yet still

Oh     I grieve the way your passion filled the day
and colored the empty place of me with play

~~

A poet she is – One of the best, in fact!  Thank you, Martie