Chris Routh

Brockville, Ontario, Canada

I was never stationary during my childhood. I moved every couple years. No, I wasn't a military brat. I was the son of a single mother, one who moved a lot to try and find job opportunities and happiness. While I'll never regret it, my childhood was very different from others. I have never known a childhood friend that has just always been there, and I never had a long term friend until I was 10. Even then it was still 5 more years before I ever settled down for more than 2 years in an area. As a result I spent 75% of my childhood being the new kid and always learning about new people from different areas in order to fit in. I ended up spending most of my childhood learning how to make others happy, and it wasn't always easy. At the end of the day, books were my best friend. They made me laugh, cry, they frightened me; they just generally made me happy. It was logical then that I was always an ace student in English when it came to matters of spelling, grammar and vocabulary. This also didn't make me very popular in high school as I often just 'knew' the answer. I spent a good portion of my day reading and learning new subjects. As many as I could, in fact. When I became a teenager, I began using poetry to vent my frustrations. I was dealing with things I had never dealt with before in my life. I moved in with my dad, after meeting him for the first time at 15. I moved to Brockville, Ontario and learned to live in a city the likes of which I had never experienced before. I encountered a lot of narrow minded country folk in this area who automatically judged you if you were not part of their well established cliques. It took me longer to make friends in Brockville than it had anywhere before.. ever. However I made friends slowly, on the internet and in school. As we grew to know each other, we found common interests. When I started a personal website and put up some poetry, I found my friends wanting to join me in posting their works as well. Seanwhat and Taz_Is_Dynasty would become the first to members of a website I named 'The Den of Amateur Poetry'. That concept has grown, and my internet friends from those days Dante and Mythbhavd joined the site as well, along with other high school friends such as Si-Shen and Paradox. Words cannot describe the value of this site in my heart. It is a culmination of all the best things I ever sought in my life. Sharing, knowledge, helping, friendship and community. I write, because it is the very heart and soul of who I am.

Chris Routh Founder of The Den of Amateur Writing "Don't try to be a great man; just be a man and let history make its own judgments." - Riker, Star Trek The Next Generation

372

73

323