Miguel Caldwell started writing poetry when he was just 7 years old, and now his book, “Golden Boy”, will be released sometime this summer.
Caldwell, 21, is a Junior elementary education major. He discovered his love of poetry by reading his mother, Vallanie Caldwell’s poetry when he was a child, even giving her advice on how to finish some of her poems.
“Miguel was in third grade when I realized he had a gift for writing,” says Vallanie Caldwell. “It was in May for Mother’s Day that he made me a card expressing his thoughts on me as a mother, such a tearful moment for me but he blew my mind.”
Miguel always had a love for writing and poetry became another extension of that.
“You can literally take whatever you’re feeling and just put it down,” said Miguel Caldwell. “My favorite part about it is the vulnerability of it because I can talk about anything in a poem, and if I’m not comfortable with talking about it blatantly then I can talk about it metaphorically. I can always count on poetry to be vulnerable in.”
The poetry that will be featured in “Golden Boy” will follow a common theme of individuality and learning to love your differences. The book will go through different sections of his life where he highlights more examples of this realization through his poetry.
“We’re all different,” Miguel said. “Those differences don’t make you less than anyone, they make you golden.”
Caldwell learned this lesson by growing up in a very athletic family where everyone played basketball except for him.
“I always felt disconnected,” he went on to say. “I felt like I didn’t have a talent, but I had to realize my talent was different.”
Caldwell’s favorite piece in the book is titled “Victory is Mine”, based on a song that is very popular in traditional Black churches.
“I take that staple song and tell my story about how I sometimes felt different ways about my experiences growing up in church and how hard it was to be different with the stigma of the church boy. To be able to take something so iconic already and put my personal experience into it and make it something new is absolutely breathtaking for me as an artist.”
The book will be available on Amazon and in several physical locations in the Rock Hill area with paperback, hardback, and electronic versions with a tentative release date of June 2022.