Colour Me In Cayenne & Chlorine – my new poetry book

Hello, everyone! I hope you are having peaceful winter months.

Over the last few weeks I have been working on publishing my second poetry book. The book is titled “Colour me in Cayenne & Chlorine” and it encompasses poems written a few years back until now.

I am super excited about it and can harp on about everything for hours, so I will write about it below: in case you are interested or have any questions and share the most relevant points here to gloss over:

You can buy my book on Lulu, Amazon and the like, by clicking HERE or on the cover image above.

If you want the book, but cannot justify affording it, write to me and I will be happy to provide a PDF for you.

Likewise, if you would like to help out with a review, I would be more than happy to send the PDF to you.

The long story is starting with the title. I have went through several titles thinking what it is that I want to title the book. My first book, which shares the title with my blog: “Colour me in Cyanide & Cherries” always felt like it represented me perfectly, in the sense that it worked as a literary descriptor for both me as a poet, and the themes of poems themselves. I had thoughts about moving away from the title, thinking of different concepts and how to represent myself better, but in the end concluded that I am still me and the only thing that made sense was to continue. That is how we got to the title “Colour me in Cayenne & Chlorine”. Just like with the first book, the choice words in the titles are meant to represent colours, and evoke a sense of juxtaposition; the title is abstract, much like my poems, I believe, are.

Following the first book’s concept, this collection is also divided into 2 sections : A pinch of Cayenne and A drop of Chlorine. This time around, I have decided to go without page numbering, and the reasoning behind this is that I would like the book to feel like an exploration, a circle – which you can revisit however you like. Much like I perceive life to be, the themes and tonality of my poems cycles between grief, love, happiness and sadness. It is an unconventional choice, but I do not like to dictate how a poetry book is read and often times, when reading poetry books, I like to open them and be surprised – and that is the feeling which I wanted to emulate.

Why did I choose to publish it now? The pure answer is : I was ready. Over the last few years, I have started writing less and the truth behind it is that, compared to a few years back: I am doing much better. The poems which I did write tend to have certain similarities between them and have this certain suburban feel to them with their imagery and where my own language was guiding me, and publishing them as a collection let’s me give a better glimpse on the whole process of this stage of my life – and more so, encourages exploration. As a poet, I have always struggled writing to themes and focusing on just one thing, one style, and you can see that reflected in my artworks as well. In a way, I wanted to feel free to publish – because the poems, the imagery, the abstract, the life and it’s joy and woe will still all stay there and still be me.

The poems in the book are and always will be, for the most part, poems you can find here and read on my blog. Some were omitted, there is new ones, but I have always been of the firm belief that one should not exclude the other. I have never condoned exclusivity with any of my creations and cherished the opportunity other poets and writers have given me to, as well, have the merit of holding their precious words and selves in my hands as a paperback book as well. Likewise and as always, if you want this book, but cannot justify buying it, just write to me, and I would be more than happy to send you a PDF of it, and same goes for my first book.

I have designed the cover for the book myself, and that as well was a journey. I went through several designs where I tried to design something that reflects me perfectly. At the end, I did with my own poetry just like I do with many of yours – I read it and I painted and the cover born from that was the one which was just right. It was adapted from this artwork below, using Photoshop as the tool. InDesign was used for the book interior and I have once again opted away from the standard 12pt lettering size – because I am both vision and colour impaired and hate resorting to additional tools to read poetry, be it wearing my glasses or enlarging everything on desktop or phone. Here is the cover artwork, and the spread:

Lastly, I have chosen to use Lulu to publish my book over any other option out there, because I have never encountered any problems with them with both publishing my first book or distributing it. I found their author and publishing tools easy to use, updated since I last published with them and there was no part of the process that was confusing or not transparent. I have designed my own cover, but I appreciate their upgraded offers of using their own integrated design tools and consider them better and easier to navigate for someone who does not have the same amount of resources as myself – and I always want to support that. I have no bad thing to say about their process, from uploading to receiving my proof copies and heartfully recommend them to anyone wanting to self – publish.

Thank you for reading this long, and I am very open to questions or advice if I can help out in any way. If asked what do I hope to achieve with all of this, in the world such as it is today is that, if you are by some chance wanting to buy a gift, make it a poetry book. Does not have to be this one, does not have to be any of my books – just a poetry book, and gift it out.

Thank you as well for any and all support on my own poetic journey; us poets need it and cherish it.

~ by Oloriel on January 26, 2023.