Phoenix – An Abstract Poetic Autobiography

Over the past few months, I have been putting together a collection of poems and in this process, it occurred to me that I had not yet thought of how to describe the genre, or at the very least, give a potential reader a snippet of what the book was about.

I was trying to get to sleep and was thinking about this (and a bazillion other things, of course), and suddenly the phrase ‘abstract poetic autobiography’ popped into my mind. I wrote it down. It felt clarified, so here we are.

Phoenix is an abstract poetic autobiography cataloguing my journey through mental illness, fighting the battle and coming out into a new awakening of who I am. It is designed not to share the details of what I have been through, but to reveal the inner workings of my mind, will, and emotions at the time.

Each piece was written independently and many written years apart. There has never been thought of putting them all together until November 2019, when, after suddenly finding myself without a job, I had a lot of time on my hands. I had already begun working on the book but now began in earnest, collating everything and anything that looked like a poem! Within a week I had over 200 poems and nearly 100 aphorisms, reams of narrative prose and a bucket full of lyrics, blog posts, and other writings.

To say I was a bit shocked is an understatement, particularly about the poetry. I just didn’t realise I had so many pieces and when I started to work them together, the revelation of them being markers along the last 20 years, really amazed me.

Now, with just a short few weeks before launching my collection, I feel a mix of trepidation and excitement. Can I even get it finished on time? Will readers ‘get’ what I am trying to say or will it fall flat? Will it get swamped by the glut of amazing work out there in the virtual world or will it hit home with enough people to gain traction?

All these questions buzz around my head like flies around a BBQ meat tray and I just have to keep swatting them – we’ll know soon enough the answer to them all so for the meantime I have to just keep on writing – aka, formatting, editing, proofreading, marketing, kindle-ing, amazon-ing… eek!

To learn more about Phoenix, follow me on social media and make sure you get ready to download it on the 5th March (AEST) for free – it’ll be a 24-hour free download blitz!

You can also support my hopes to publish in print by becoming a Patron of my work on Patreon for as little as $2 AUD per month. Details in the link below.

Become a Patron!