It has been over three months now since I self-published my book Imagine This: From Pain to Possibility. You may know that I am currently working to edit The Criminal so that I can send it to literary agents, the first step in working to publish a novel the conventional way.
But that is not the only way to publish a novel or any other book and in fact, nowadays, more and more books are being self-published as it becomes more and more difficult to publish via agents and publishers.
Poetry books, in particular, are incredibly difficult to find an agent for as most agents will not represent poetry. In fact, there are many agents out there who will represent practically anything but poetry. This is the biggest reason that I chose to self-publish my poetry book.
In the following weeks, I will talk a little bit about what it took to go through that process: how I self-published Imagine This but for today, I wanted to do something a little different.
Imagine This includes around 60 poems in three different sections (poetry in pain, poetry in promise, poetry in possibility). But the poems included in the book were not the only poems I wrote for the book. Just like in novels, I wrote a lot and then I edited. I took out poems that just didn't fit and I changed some of the poems to make them fit.
Today, I thought I would share three "honorable mention" poems that didn't make the cut and why they didn't quite make it. Hope you enjoy!
Cries:
The poem "Cries" is actually in the book. In the book, though, it is actually a good poem (even if I do say so myself). The poem is written based on the COVID pandemic (my frustrations with it as well as the pain I knew it caused others). But this first draft can be described as nothing but BAD. Only a few segments from it can be seen in the final draft of the book. And they are edited.
To understand the feeling of friendship
One has to be alone sometimes
To stand amongst a crowd
As a single star in a night sky
Of beautiful groupings of constellations.
To understand love one has to feel loss.
To stand alone amongst the
Crying calls of sons to fathers and
Daughters to mothers
Crys, no matter how loud, don’t reach the dead.
Nor do they reach the alone.
To stop being alone, one has to reach out themselves.
Allow themselves to hear the cries of those calling to them.
Open their hearts to the very thing they fear the most.
Have I Ever Told You:
I don't hate this poem. I wrote it a long while ago (well before I was considering writing a poetry book) and it was on my Wattpad when I maintained that and before I took down the poetry (so what is in the published book is not on Wattpad). It remained in the book for a few drafts but I eventually decided that it didn't really click with any of the sections and that it was personal in a different way than the pain poems or promise poems were. I took it out of the book but here it is today.
Have I ever told you?
Have I ever told you how, for me, you make the stars align?
For me, you make the wrong thing right.
You make me smile.
Have I ever told you?
How much I want to weave your time with mine.
How much I want you to pull me into your arms before you leave tonight.
It’s your “goodbye.”
Have I ever told you?
How I wish I could make everything right,
Take away all your pain, and mine,
Breathe into your chest and cry.
Have I ever told you?
How your smile draws mine out like no others’ can.
How your laughter sends warmth throughout all that I am.
You make me happy.
Have I ever told you?
How terrified I was to leave you behind.
How I knew I could leave the place but not the mind.
I treasure your friendship.
Have I ever told you?
That no matter how many words I try to use,
I can’t seem to tell you
How much you mean to me.
Love:
This poem is in the book, just like "Cries" is. However, unlike "Cries" this poem is mostly unedited. It is largely the same here as it is in the book. The biggest difference is the ending. I felt that the ending was a bit melancholy for the cheerful "imagination" centered "possibility poems" section of the book that the poem is in. So wrote a new ending for the poem though I did keep the poem (written a while ago in the same period as the poem above) in the book.
Love is.
Love is being there for someone in the hard times
Putting a hand on their back
And an arm around their shoulder
Telling them they're going to be ok.
Love is staring at someone
And smiling
And feeling your heart bloom.
Love is understanding.
Understanding when to push
And when to back off.
When to ask questions
And when to just listen.
Understanding the one
The one you love.
Love is giving without getting.
Knowing exactly what they desire
Wanting for them more than they deserve
And what they can’t possibly live up to
And finding it for them.
Tracking it down to the ends of the earth.
Giving up anything and everything to get it for them
Even if you'll get nothing in return.
Love is friendship.
The strength to be a friend
When you know that’s all they want from you.
Loyalty.
The courage to know one another's strengths
And weaknesses.
And to love one another all the same.
Love is knowing
Just knowing you want to be with someone forever and ever more.
Wishing that someone would dance with you in the moonlight,
Hold your hand and swing you beneath the stars.
Kiss your lips and whisper in your ear.
Lay with you beneath the light of the moon and just hold you in their arms.
Wishing they were with you every moment of every day smiling at you.
Loving you like you will love them ‘till the ends of time
You miss that smile when they're not there.
But they often aren't
And that’s the harshest and most obvious sign of love.
When they don’t love you back,
It’s the most painful thing of all.
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