Lyla Fain Osmundsen

Wa (o)ndering to Poetry Lyla Fain Osmundsen

Lyla Osmundsen copied her first poem, "Humpty-Dumpty", when she was six years old. She stapled the rhyme to a cardboard plant container, painted to resemble a stone wall. A fat, little, male doll, heavily bandaged, lay propped against the bottom of the container. The judges of her Brownie troupe's flower arrangements left no 1st, 2nd, or any other prize ribbon beside him. Her pride and his body were both wounded. She decided to write her own words.