How I turned the poems I have written sporadically over the past 3 years into a book
I have always wanted to publish a poetry book. It was a wish because I love reading poetry and enjoy the idea of writing it, but for the longest time, I wondered if it was a worthwhile project to work on since people around me kept telling me that no one really reads poetry. After some haphazard research, I found the notion somewhat true. So, I moved on. Over the years, at certain times, online and offline, I found exceptions to this rule, but it was not enough to move me to take action.
I felt like I would not be an exception to that rule even if other people were, and I would not be able to make myself out to be a successful poet if I tried.
And maybe, since I kept hearing ‘no one reads poetry’ so often, and also because I was overwhelmed with the idea of failure, I let it become a self-limiting belief.
I held myself back from writing poetry for years, thinking that it was a waste of my time to pursue writing it.
Lately, I have been writing poems again, and perhaps with a newfound love for writing a few ambiguous words that showcase my ambivalent emotions, giving them a new perspective and helping me look at them in a new way that I have never seen before, gave me the courage to wander into the unknown.
In the past, I have had friends and readers leave comments on my books telling me how they felt my prose felt somewhat lyrical to them while reading, and due to an attitude of being indifferent and shy, I used to brush it off often. But I knew that I could write poetry.
I have always known that.
This past week, I found the courage to give the poetry project a new life. I shelved the poetry book project in 2021 while slapping it with a plain cover before uploading the manuscript to KDP. After my erroneous and hasty research, I felt like I couldn’t even bother myself to clean up the manuscript before hitting publish on Amazon, and I was not surprised that the book failed to sell any copies after I checked the reports a few months later to see how it was doing on the platform. I stopped checking its sales and moved on to writing fiction since I felt like I had to stick to my lane and work on what I knew how to work on better.
But I was denying myself a different path of self-expression that came as a second nature to me since I was little.
So, with this newfound courage, I started to edit my poems and added some prose to the book. I cleaned up the manuscript and added new and recent poetry that I had penned down on the notes app on my phone. And the result is before you.
I have a new book on my hands!
And this time, it is a poetry book!
Check it out here: https://www.amazon.in/All-poems-wrote-you-compilation-ebook/dp/B092QZRBML/