That's Life: In Poetry and Short Stories

Poetry was Barbara Sellers's first love. She wrote her first poem at age nine, although she wrote
most of the poems in this book when she was 35 (the same age she is on the book cover).
Sellers's early poems were humorous and made people laugh. She enjoyed entertaining friends and
family members with her humorous poems, so she continued to pursue her passion to write more.
Before long, instead of sitting down at a desk and waiting for inspiration to write her next poem, her
poems started coming to her naturally while she slept. In the middle of the night, she often awoke with a
new poem on her mind. If she did not take out a pen and write it down, going back to sleep would be very
difficult. Originally, the first poem Sellers fell in love with was "Little Orphan Annie" by James Whitcomb
Riley. She read Riley's long poem so frequently that Sellers can still recite all four stanzas from memory,
without notes.
Sellers said some of the greatest poems ever written often have to be closely examined before anyone
can fully comprehend their meanings. However, many casual readers do not enjoy reading poems that are
too cryptic to immediately decipher. That is why Sellers largely writes simplistic poems with messages that
are easy for anyone to understand.