For my bachelor`s degree I did English and American Literature and Creative Writing. In my third year, one of the modules we were able to pick was called “The Book Project”. In this module we were going to spend a year producing, printing and publishing a book, before ending the year with a book launch. Which I was pretty drunk for, if I may say so. Free wine and first time reading my own work was not the best combination!
Writing a book has always been a dream of mine. When I was young I used to write short stories by hand and create tiny books, drawing a cover on the front side. A massive clichè, I know. But it was what originally drew me towards my bachelor degree with Creative Writing. I was, however, always more into fiction and it was not until I started University that I got more drawn towards expressing myself through poetry.
There is a form of freedom in poetry, a freedom to play with the words and sentences, create your own words and meanings to build up an image that means someting to you, but could mean something totally different to someone else. It is these images that has been the strongest focus in my work, and has been my way of being able to get my own feelings out of my system, as they tend to get stuck and are also difficult to express through normal conversations.
I put a lot of myself in this book, I guess it can be seen as the easiest way to do it. Using your own experiences and emotions. But I also wanted to make it relevant to others, by using metaphors that can be understood differently from person to person. Hopefully someone else can get something out of these poems, a feeling or an image they can relate to something. That is my goal when writing, that it can mean something to someone else.
It was such an incredible feeling reaching the end product. A book called “Morning Grass”, which is a poem collection following one persons journey through life in three chapters. Even more incredible was it the day the package with the books arrived at my door and I could take them all out of the box to look at them, feel them and smell them. I remember finding it weird that this was something I had created.
The whole process of building up a story through the book, and not just picking random poems was difficult. Espesially eliminating some of my personal favourites for the benefit of the end result. However, it has been one of the most exiting things I have done, and I have since been working on new projects and if everything goes to plan I am planning on publishing a new book next year. The plan was to isolate on an island and write, but after Covid-19 that suddenly does not have the same appeal anymore!
I recommend everyone giving poetry-writing a shot. It is an amazing way to let go of feelings that are captured deep inside, and also to connect with others through a common ground.
