Sydney Eddison was just a child when she discovered her love of writing poetry.

While attending a small school in Watertown, from first through fourth grade, she did not let her difficulty reading stop her from pursuing her creativity through words.

"I wrote reams and reams of poetry," the longtime Newtown resident recently recalled. "Apparently, it had something that attracted [the teachers'] attention and they made a point that my struggles with reading were not at all reflected in my writing, except that my spelling was so bad."

When her classes there had come to an end and she transitioned to another school for fifth grade, she suddenly stopped writing completely.

"I didn't write another poem until 75 years later," Mrs Eddison said.

In the 1980s, she began writing about gardening - an expertise she is well known for in town - and penned seven books on the topic. Still, her poetry did not come to be until much later when she was faced with a major illness that, she says, put her out of commission for some time.

"It shook me up so much that it seemed to have also shaken loose some floating words," Mrs Eddison said.

She remembers how one day she had all these phrases running through her mind but could not seem to grasp what to do with them. It was as if through her trauma of being ill she was able to awaken a deeper part of her being.

She decided to call up her good friend and fellow gardening buddy to get his opinion on if what she was thinking about sounded at all like a poem. Her friend, who had suffered a stroke in his late 50s, listened intently to her speak and repeated one word back to her: more, more, more!

The conversation fueled her to begin putting those words onto paper and write poetry again. The two continue to meet every week to make his collages - him with the vision and her with the ability to trim and glue pieces into place - and as a result she was inspired to produce a poem a week to share one with him each time they had lunch together.

"This is now my third book of poetry and that's why it's dedicated to [him], because it's 'more,'" Mrs Eddison said.

Latest Work

Those weekly poems have created Mrs Eddison's newest book All The Luck: Poems Celebrating Love, Life, And The Enduring Human Spirit, which was published in February and printed by CreateSpace.

The culmination of pieces are all near and dear to her heart and stem from a wide array of inspiration.

Mrs Eddison gives immense credit to her editor, Lorraine Anderson, who she says was instrumental in organizing each poem into its proper section: Preface, Now and Then, Recurring Miracles, and Harvest of Years.

"She is hands down the best. It was such a wonderful experience with her, and she was a godsend," Mrs Eddison said.

Another person who had a great deal of influence on the final product of All The Luck was not physically present for its creation. While working on the book, Mrs Eddison said deep down she felt as if she could hear her late husband Martin interjecting as she wrote. When he was alive, he was always the one to get to hear her writing first and many times he was the subject of its story.

"I used to read him everything - oh the poor man, the things he had to read," Mrs Eddison said through her laughter.

For All The Luck, she says she found herself hearing his input and sometimes that feedback would make her question if she should or should not say something. Ultimately, she chose to trail-blaze forward and share personal antidotes that allowed her creativity to be uncensored. She attributes the whole process from start to finish as being incredibly humbling.

"You are what you are, and that's what poetry is about," Mrs Eddison said. "It comes from a deep place."

With National Poetry Month in April, Mrs Eddison will have her next public book reading and signing at The Hickory Stick Bookshop in Washington Depot on Sunday, April 22, at 2 pm. For more information, visit hickorystickbookshop.com or e-mail books@hickorystickbookshop.com.

All The Luck is 104 pages and available in paperback for $15.

To purchase a copy of All The Luck locally, visit Queen Streets Gifts & Treats, 5 Queen Street in Newtown, or Byrd's Books, 126 Greenwood Avenue in Bethel.

An Excerpt From All The Luck

Wherever You Are

By Sydney Eddison

I long for some manifestation

of your spirit.

In life, we were close.

For almost fifty years, you

filled my heart and mind.

Your death left emptiness,

a black hole that swallows

sight and sound.

I would give the world

to hear your voice again.

But then I couldn't bear

to let it go, because

I know what loneliness is.

It is not the desire

for company - I have friends,

loyal and kind.

But I will leave them

gladly to join you,

wherever you are.