Marg Wadsworth has known she was a poet at heart since she was a teenager.
Now at 62 years of age, the retired Vernon school teacher has released her first book of poems and personal stories, which she’ll share at an upcoming event in Vernon.
Do You Know Him? is a spiritual book — a series of poems that deal with faith, nature, life and death that are interspersed with the autobiographical stories that inspired them. Above all, she hopes it will reaches one type of person in particular.
“My priority audience is people who have been hurt by organized religion.”
At her book launch at the Vernon Christian Fellowship on Oct. 20, 2 p.m., Wadsworth will repaeat that message while giving away a few copies, signing covers and reading excerpts.
Wadsworth was a teacher at Mission Hill Elementary for 23 years and spent her last two years before retirement at Hillview Elementary. Teaching Grades 1 to 3.
She often incorporated the writer side of herself in her lessons.
“If there was something that the kids needed to learn—maybe a science concept or a social studies concept—I would take the facts that I wanted them to learn and I would put them into a poem,” said Wadsworth.
Poems she wrote decades ago can be found on the pages of her latest release — poems she wrote as a way of expressing herself in ways she wasn’t always able to do in conversation.
“Some of the poems are from things that happened through my teaching career, or poems that happened when loved ones had cancer — or maybe when some passed away—dealing with death and illness, and also happy times,” she said.
The book isn’t geared towards a Grade 1 reading level, but promises to be popular among her former Grade 1 students.
“Some of the kids who I taught I still connect with on Facebook,” Wadsworth said. “When they saw that the book came out they were excited to read it…they knew about my poetry because they learned through it.”
The book is available at doyouknowhimbook.com.