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Leslie McClintock

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I've been a poet since third grade when I wrote my first, but by no means last, truly awful poem. As if the title, "My Mountains in Montana", weren't bad enough, my teacher accused me of plagiarism. The bare bones facts are that I have an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Montana (1976). Though fully intending to have a career in poetry, whatever that means, I ended up working in the field of family violence for 25 years, where there was little time to write poems. I'm now retired and have jogged back to poetry. I'm part of a pretty big very extended family of assorted friends and relatives, including three fabulous grandsons, Nick (6), Ben (2 ¾), and Jake (1). I love to laugh—they make me laugh a lot. I think sometimes poetry as a TOPIC takes itself way too seriously and appreciate poetry that has a bit of humor, or a lot of humor. I like the funny, the odd, the broken, the rusty, and the strange. In my poem "50 Signs of Mental Illness", one of the tell-tale signs is oddness. I have reflected quite a bit on oddness and have come to understand that all of us are in some way or other wearing our tin foil hats, whether others can see them or not. I think poetry is about the tin foil hats.