This is the fourth in a series on my journey to write poetry on women and mental health. How do I bring together individual poems to make a whole collection?
Well, this past weekend, just in time for Easter---I made a book. I had the gift of time and floor space—I arranged and re-arranged the individual poems, kind of like playing cards. The photo looks so glamorous!
But the truth is this is a tedious time in the poetry book making process. I find it hard to sit still when it comes time to cut and paste. Arrange the Table of Contents. Cut and paste. Scroll back to the Table of Contents. Repeat.
I paced. I ate lots of sugary snacks. I thought about tossing the pages into the air. The order they landed in could be the new order of poems in the book.
Mostly I wondered how people do this without help. The help of supportive family who manage without me when I’m on writing retreat. And the support of my fellow Workhorse poets. I read and re-read their feedback to keep me focused. I’m also fortunate that an editor published a chunk of my poems---they are linked poems, so they really need to stay together to work at their best. Their publication in the Disappointed Housewife gave me resolve to stick to it. Someone believed in my poems! Plus, seeing them published as a set made it easier to picture them one day being part of a book.
My book project got a new life for Easter—a re-birth. It wasn’t my favorite part of this journey, but it’s behind me.
