I’ve been making up some graphics to help me promote Learning Curve, which will have its official release day next week. If you can’t wait, you can order it on Amazon now, of course, but if you’d like a signed copy, my bookstore is the place to come, specifically next Friday from 5-8 p.m. (although any other of my open times works as well).
Here’s a bite-size tidbit to help you decide if you want to join me on the learning curve of life…
Copyright 2022 Michelle Garren-Flye
Happy December! It’s cold today. My hands are cold as I type. But it doesn’t usually stay cold here for long. Tomorrow will be warmer. Maybe I’ll find something else to write. Any suggestions?
Learning Curve is coming soon!
Copyright 2022 Michelle Garren-Flye
I just sent my latest poetry book, Learning Curve, to the printer. This is the third poetry book in my Poietry Diaries series, my sixth poetry book overall. I think. If I counted them right…
Anyway, it’s done. I started this one in July. Now in mid November, almost exactly four months later, it’s done. And I’m proud of it. The poems are well written, edited and illustrated. The format of the book makes sense. I’ll be proud to have it on the shelf at my store. It’s a good addition to my repertoire.
Here’s the blurb for it:
Learning Curve is a contemporary collection of poetry written in the style of villanelle, originally a rustic Italian song, later developed into a French form of short poetry and then into a format with a rigid and demanding rhyme scheme and format. Award-winning poet Michelle Garren-Flye takes on this form in the latest volume of her Poetry Diaries, taking the reader along on not only an emotional journey but also one that promises to introduce the reader to a beautiful form of song-like poetry that will delight and enchant any poetry lover.
Let the reader beware, however. As the poet acknowledges, poetry is the most true of any form of literature. If the truth is anywhere, it’s definitely in these pages.
And finally, it took me a while to decide on how to format this book. It’s a little different from my others. For one thing, I went with black and white again. I was going to go with all simple line drawings, which is more my forte anyway, but I wound up adding shades of grey (lol) to many of them. Here’s one I particularly like that I thought I’d share with you. If you like it, stay tuned. Release date will be announced soon!
Poem and illustration copyright 2022 Michelle Garren-Flye
It’s been a bit since I last updated. I’m busy busy getting Learning Curve finished up. Sometimes it amazes me how synchronous bookbuilding can be. I set out to write fifty villanelles. Actually, I set out to master the art of the villanelle, which is an accomplishment in itself. During the course of writing villanelles, it occurred to me that I could make a book out of them. It also occurred to me that two of my previous poetry books were actually the beginning of a series that Learning Curve could continue.
Synchronicity, man.
And now I’m putting together Learning Curve, and synchronicity seems to be more a factor than ever. I didn’t write the villanelles with any sort of organization or sections/chapters in mind. And yet, they seem to be dividing themselves up perfectly in groups of ten. Almost perfectly, anyway.
For me, this part of bookbuilding takes some time. I have been drawing all along while writing villanelles, and many of those illustrations are finding their way into my book. But I’m also drawing special illustrations for some of my poems. I’m putting together each page separately, just as I’ve done for past books, but I think I’ve gotten better at it.
Plus, it’s been very synchronous.
One of the illustrations from Learning Curve. Copyright 2022 Michelle Garren-Flye
lol.
Of course.
I have sold literally dozens of a certain book recently. Great news, right? (Keep in mind I don’t sell dozens of books usually.)
Except I don’t actually like this particular book…
It’s not a badly written book. I don’t write bad. It’s even got a more complex plot than some of my simpler romances. It’s just that I tried an experiment with this one and I don’t think it worked. At the time I wrote it I’d been writing romances with the typical sweet, likable, strong female protagonists who had faced down challenges in their lives and come out the better for it. (huh) So I decided to write a less likable female protagonist for this one. She’s supposed to be brittle on the outside with a soft core. She’s a bit bitchy, to be honest. And while she was sort of fun to write, I never really connected with her.
I recently heard a word that I relate to. A friend posted it on Facebook. The word is meraki. It is Greek for leaving something of yourself in everything you do. Every artist strives to do this, I think. It’s a risk, though. When you leave something of yourself in your work and it’s rejected, that’s a part of you that suffers. Maybe at the time I chose to write a romance with less of me in it than usual without thinking I’d be less likely to connect to it? Maybe that’s why I am loving poetry so much now. Because it’s easier to leave me in my poetry because if I’m writing it right, I’m lost in it anyway.
Whatever the reason I wrote that way then and this way now, every time I see the numbers tick up on this particular book, I think, No, not that one! Because there’s no meraki to it. There’s not enough me.
It’s one thing to tell you how special this little book is. It’s another to show you. So here I am in a one-take video, reading my book out loud and explaining it as well as showing you the pictures as best I could.
Want to look for the balloon-man with me?
I’ve been debating about how to celebrate National Poetry Month. I always do something on here to make the month special. I’ve written a poem a day. I’ve written and illustrated a haiku every day. This year I want to do something special because this year is special to me. It’s my first year I’ve actually had ambitions for my poetry.
I’ve been studying renga recently. It’s sort of an early form of slam poetry invented in Japan where poets would gather for a renga “party” and try to outdo each other with every verse. Haiku (and we all know I love haiku!) actually grew out of the renga format, which featured alternating verses of 17 and 14 syllables.
So I’ve decided to write a (sort of) renga over the course of April. Renga were normally written in honor of a celebration and, in a way, I’m celebrating a new beginning in my life in April. I think the title of the renga will be “Thawing”. Each verse will be illustrated. I will follow the format of alternating 17 and 14 syllables and at the end, I will (hopefully) have the first thirty pages of my next illustrated poetry book, Hypercreativity.
So join me tomorrow for verse 1. And we’ll see where we go from there.
Earlier this week, I finished formatting 100 Warm Days of Haiku. Ordinarily, this is where I would begin asking friends and fellow writers to look at it for me. Read and critique the poems, be sure the order makes sense. Look at the pictures and tell me if any of them need to be changed at all.
But the more I thought about what this book is, the more I realized that was not something I needed or wanted to do. This book is different. This book is true.
I have always wondered why poetry is classified as nonfiction, but after writing this book, I realize that has always been true. Poetry captures what is going on in the soul of its writer in a way that cannot be denied.
My 100 haiku were written and illustrated over the course of a four month period stretching from April 1 to July 31, 2021. To put it bluntly, this time period involvedogreat deal of change and upheaval for me personally, and that upheaval is reflected in this collection. There is anger, sorrow, beauty, love, loss and loneliness in this book. And there is also hope.
To give you an idea, here’s the description from the back of the book:
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but is it worth seventeen syllables? Poet Michelle Garren Flye explores the ancient form of Japanese poetry during three months of spring and summer. The book follows the author on a journey of change and transformation that she didn’t expect when she undertook the task, using the spare format of the haiku and her colorful illustrations to express emotions and desires that emerge from the chrysalis of her heart.
As I got closer to the end of the book, I tried to figure out how I would end it. I have never yet ended a book on a sour note. I’m not a tragic writer, and in spite of emotional upheaval, I am not a tragic person. I won’t spoil it, but I am so very proud of the final illustration, I thought I might share that with you:
For more information, you can find 100 Days of Haiku on Amazon.
I’m so close to being done with 100 Warm Days of Haiku! It will be my longest poetry book yet. And my most unique book of any genre. I’m excited to share it, and I hope you’ll be excited, too. It’s a book meant for looking at as much as reading. Even UnSong didn’t really manage that.
So I guess the very reasonable question would be why am I publishing a book that’s as much to look at as to read? I’m an author, not an artist, a poet, not a painter.
Short answer? I like to challenge myself. I like to be more. Long answer? This has been a complicated year in which I came to know a lot of interesting things about myself. I mean, none of us has had an easy year, right? Pandemic, home schooling, isolation, mask-wearing…it’s all a bit much. Add any other complications into the mix and you’ve got the makings of a good, old-fashioned nervous breakdown. And who didn’t have other complications?
My answer for the complications in my life was to dig deeper to find more. I found a lot. And 100 Warm Days of Haiku is my way of sharing it with you. So stay tuned for more information.
Today is usually both a relief and a sad day for me because I love National Poetry Month. 🙂 In case you couldn’t tell. I enjoy challenging myself by writing a poem a day. I love reading others’ poetry, and this month I took it a step further and invited local poets to submit recordings of themselves reading one of their poems, which I then posted on my store’s social media.
It’s a been a good month.
If you’ve enjoyed my illustrated haiku, thank you. They’ve been a great deal of fun to come up with. I’m planning to continue through the summer (though not posting them online, sorry) and at the end I hope to have something I can be proud enough of to publish with the title “100 Warm Days of Haiku”. This one will be different since I’m getting more confident with my use of color. It’ll still be pretty cheap as a Kindle book, but the physical book may be a bit more expensive since I’d like to publish it in color this time.
In the meantime, please consider giving my first collection of illustrated poetry, “UnSong”, a try. It’s available online today. I don’t have physical copies in my store yet because I worked on it right up til the deadline to make sure it was something I could be proud of (and I am).
So here it goes. I’m releasing UnSong on the world. I hope it doesn’t hurt too much.
BREATHE: Michelle Garren-Flye 