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Poetry is sometimes hard to define.  New writers wonder if what they are writing is “really” poetry; is breaking up the sentences into lines enough?  Doesn’t poetry have to be complicated and hard to understand?  Robert Frost said, “Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” Carrie Reed, a recent participant in the Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program’s What is Home  project, read a poem at the June Poetry Hoot’s Open Mic that perfectly meets Frost’s criteria.  Her poem not only captures a moment, telling us a story, but is also a simple and evocative expression of emotions felt by so many parents of teenagers: 

On a Friday Evening

I passed my son on the road today.

He was in a car

Crowded with friends,

Going the opposite way.

I waved, feeling the loss of him,

And saw his teenage face

Half-smiling from the back seat,

His hand, not waving, but showing me

A sign of peace.

.

                             - Carrie Reed

Lesley Kimball

"On a Friday Evening” copyright 2006 by Carrie Reed.   Carrie Reed is an aspiring writer who has lived in the Portsmouth area for the past fifteen years, currently residing with her two children in Eliot, Maine. When not working, she enjoys reading, yoga, and long walks in the woods.