When it comes to being inspired by the world around them, teenagers are often quite receptive, and Lively's Kent Cox is no exception. The 18-year-old has just finished penning his first book of poetry, called Hazel Brown Eyes.
The book, named after the colour of his girlfriend's eyes, is a soft-covered compilation of 38 poems about life, death and passion from the perspective of teenager seeking to understand the meaning of the sometimes incomprehensible events of life.
One of those events was the 2004 suicide of a peer, Christine Elizabeth Ceasar, a fellow student at Lively District Secondary School.
"Christine committed suicide when we were in Grade 9, just before exams. She was a close friend of mine," Cox said.
The teen's death bothered Cox tremendously, but he buried his emotions until last December, when, as he was listening to music, the thoughts and memories from that time came flooding back.
"I turned to writing to help me deal with what I was feeling," he said.
The following is an excerpt from his poem, "Angel":
It seems like yesterday,
It all came straight from the heart,
That smile just grew inside me,
You had me from the start girl.
But something happened that week,
Something wasn't right,
It was like,
You had it backwards and no one could see it coming,
Like a bullet in the night,
The shockwave hit so hard,
Cox had begun writing poetry a month prior, after being encouraged by his girlfriend, and used the cathartic exercise as a way to reflect personal experiences from his life and the lives of others.
"My girlfriend really inspired a lot of the poetry I wrote," he said quietly. "She really helps me to put things in perspective."
Cox also thanks his guidance counsellor Karen Nelson, who encouraged him to look into publishing his work and his English teacher Mary Kallio, who provided valuable editing expertise.
"She definitely was the grammar and punctuation police," he said with a laugh.
Cox, who is actively involved in a variety of sports, including hockey and volleyball, says he will be interested to see what his friends' reactions will be once his book of poetry is published. Most of them don't know about his secret passion for writing down soul-baring prose.
"You find out a lot about yourself through the writing
process," he said.
The young man credits his artistic gene to his grandmother
Colleen Lauren, a nurse who spends some of her free time
painting and writing.
Cox paid $400 to a United States self-publishing company, Author House, to publish his book. The deal will give him 33 books, which he plans to sell at Battistelli's Your Independent Grocer (where he works part time) and at school. The book, which retails for less than $10, will be published in the next couple of months.
When he's not writing poetry, Cox spends time with his girlfriend, his part-time job, sports and school. He plans on taking a psychology degree at Laurentian University next year.
For more information about Cox's book, go online to www.authorhouse.com/bookstore/itemdetail~bookid~44633.aspx .
