I Published My First Poetry Collection
Diving in to Mother Scorpion
April 2020 was the month I finally decided to give self-publishing a go. With some extra time at home thanks to quarantine, I had fewer excuses to put this off! The manuscript had been sitting completed on my computer for years and I’d open it, look at it, edit a bit, and I even submitted it to a publisher here and there with no luck. However, after much thought, I decided it was time to let this one go out into the world. I took some quiet time and learned how to use Kindle Direct Publishing, I used Canva to design the cover and I fought my not-so-tech-savvy nature and began preparing and formatting my manuscript with some help from this guide by Jack Preston King.
I’ve been writing poetry ever since I was a young teen and I have stacks of journals and notebooks filled with poems. On my computer, there is a file called “poems” that bursting with my words, some rough drafts, some polished pieces, some that are just a single line or two that were started and then forgotten. The idea of putting together a collection of poems that somehow fit together with a common thread, for me, was daunting.
In the recent years, however, there was one theme that kept resurfacing: Motherhood. After my oldest daughter was born in 2015, the theme of motherhood became a constant in my writing. Not always teddy bears and cuddles, I wrote about the good and the bad, the joyous and the painful. These works make up the bulk of Mother Scorpion.
Mother Scorpion is divided into 3 parts: Dream Stories, Tiny Things, and Discharge Papers.
Pieces from the first 2 parts have been published on Medium in the past, but everything in the last part has never been shared (that’s the one I’m most nervous about!)
Dream Stories is comprised completely of double lunes (American haiku). They are descriptions of dreams I had during pregnancy. To me, these are like charms on a charm bracelet, little souvenirs from my subconscious that ended up being relevant and treasured by me long after pregnancy.
Tiny Things are motherhood poems, some in form, some in free verse, that speak to the more universal feelings and experiences of being a new mom.
Discharge Papers is the more painful section, detailing the anxious thoughts that go through a mother’s mind when something frightening happens to their child.
Together they make up a collection that both delights and terrifies me, one that I hope other mothers can relate to and find comfort in.
In my Acknowledgements, I send a big thank you to the Medium poetry community. Know that that comes straight from my heart. Without your support, kindness, love, and encouragement, I may have given up on writing long ago. You’re the best and I feel blessed to be a part of this community.
Mother Scorpion, paperback, available on Amazon:
