Even at 16, Bob Dylan was a poet

Long before he became famous for such tunes as “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Bob Dylan’s social consciousness and artistry were evident in a poem he penned about a little dog who met a tragic end.

Dylan was just 16 -- and still going by his given name Bob Zimmerman -- when he wrote “Little Buddy” in the summer of 1957 for the newspaper at Herzl Camp in Webster, Wis.

Now the poem is being offered for sale at a Christie’s auction, where it is expected to sell for $10,000 to $15,000 on June 23.

Lisa Heilicher, a fellow camper and editor of the Herzl Herald, has decided to sell the poem to support the camp’s $8-million capital campaign.

“I kept it with all of my stuff that I collected from camp,” Heilicher said in a telephone interview from her home in Minneapolis. “When I realized how famous he had become, I put it in a piece of plastic and stuck it in an encyclopedia.”

Written on both sides of a single page, the poem tells the poignant story of Little Buddy, who is killed at the hands of a drunkard, and the boy who mourns him.

Of that summer, Heilicher recalled Dylan “banging on the piano instead of going to the [camp] sessions.” He pays tribute to those days on his 2008 CD, “Tell Tale Signs,” which features a photo of the 16-year-old Dylan holding a guitar, surrounded by campers.

“He was different,” she said. “He was way before his time.”