As one Selmian has followed news during the last couple of months, she is not pleased with what she has seen.

That same news has caused Bernice Shaw to blow the dust off a self-penned 2007 poem, “A Lesson of Life,” and come out from the shadow of her pseudonym, Miberia Kwan, in an attempt to spark a positive influence on her community.

“I know there are many other people in the community feeling the same distraught and pain of things occurring, and not really knowing how to express yourself,” said Shaw. “It’s just about the different degrees of, wickedness or whatever, because so many people, we have choices. Whether they’re right or wrong, we don’t know.”

Shaw first attempted an art career in 1982 with acrylic oils and paints. She joined the Selma Art Guild. But, with every painting she finished, she said that something seemed to be missing from each.

“I just picked up my pen and started writing, and I just felt more comfortable expressing myself,” said Shaw. “When you live in a community and you see and hear so much going on, basically I just felt myself — from my own life experience — knowing what it felt like to be compassionate toward situations.”

She began with bereavement poems, then branched out to other genres. She has yet to write a poem under her own name.

“I do have a little shyness about myself. I knew I was not ready to expose myself to the public,” said Shaw. “I felt very comfortable in writing, but I never had the team to really just commit myself and let it flow. “

She usually found the time to write whenever the urge hit her though. Shaw, who says she is an emotional person, channeled her experience and feelings into many of her works. She wrote a book in 2005, titled “Throne of Grace,” and is still working to get it published.

Though the works were written under her pseudonym, she said she is now comfortable enough with her work to publish the book under her own name.

“A Lesson in Life”

“When making choices between right and wrong,

Of all things, God knows what’s going on.

Evil a delightful ring has a decent taste

Man’s self-destructive, not knowing just a waste.

Wickedness has a melody, the creator of all pain,

You say that I’m crazy; I never claimed to be sane.

Enemies allures in darkness and of shadows in the light,

They are on a mission, what gives them the right?

Nobody seems to know what brings man to ruins,

Secrets are conspiracies, no one knows what they are doing.

Of all the crimes of the world: greed No. 1,

Throw the rock in the hand, like a rabbit on the run.

Little man in the moon, we would love to hear your story,

Instinct tells us hold onto God’s eternal glory.

Jealousy just another word evolved just from hate,

Everybody has to die and heaven’s got a gate.