Dreams of Bacon

A gifted poet who happens to be autistic, Matthew Goldsmith is a senior in high school. I recently spoke with him and his mom, Leslie, (appropriately at BaconFest) about his self published book Dreams of Bacon, which was five years in the making:

Leslie: "He started writing when he was thirteen and actually my husband thought he had plagiarized the poems because they were that good. I had to show him the notebook of handwritten poems to show that he actually wrote them! He's on the (autism) spectrum; we've known since he was two. We were able to compile 95 poems, and he's still writing poetry, actually. He's been in newspaper articles; Autism Speaks wants to put some of his poems on their website. Barnes and Noble is looking at trying to get them going. We just sent out college applications and he wants to go to school for zoology."
Me: "So what started you writing poetry?"
Matthew: "I don't really remember. We did it in English class in seventh grade, and I figured, like, 'Oh, I did pretty well, so I'm going to keep on doing this."
Me: "How do you get into the zone to write a poem?"
Matthew: "Usually I'm doing something, I'm walking somewhere, doing some everyday kind of thing and then I think of something--an idea pops into my head--and I'm just like, 'Oh, that's kinda neat,' and I start writing it and it just goes on from there. Most of the poems don't take longer than a day."

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