Explore your parenting through poetry

What I love about poetry is how it allows us to view our lives through a different prism: one that breaks apart the pieces of our experience into rainbow colors and then focuses them with clarity that can be blinding in its insight.

When I became a parent, it was natural — even necessary — to examine my new adventures (and misadventures) through the lens of poetry.

Did we dream you into existence,
or was it more mundane?

When you open yourself up to writing poetry, you open yourself to exploring and memorializing what was meaningful to you, even the hard moments.

Feeling you leave in a gush of pain and red,
in the blackest and loneliest part of the night …

Why were we led all that way, and never to see your face?

Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop: WINNERS!

In the month of April and into May, a group of intrepid poets and I explored parenting through poetry. It was a glorious, inspirational time, and I was so pleased to share the journey with these writers:

• Karen at MomAgain@40 — weekly poet!
• Julia at A Little Bit of All of It — daily poet!
• siren of the plains
• Teresa of Spirit Grooves — daily poet!
• Kelly of KellyNaturally.com — weekly poet!
• Jennifer of True Confessions of a Real Mommy

Sunday Surf: Software, schedules, affiliates, and trolls

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Links to share, from Writing Tidbits:

(It's been awhile, so I'm breaking them into separate posts.)

» State of the Draft, January 2013 Domestic Chaos

Reviews of writing software for short stories, novels, and editing.

1 MONTH AGO

writing novels novel writing editing writing software software short stories reviews

Between Books: The End of Illness, Mr. Rogers, and my daily freelance-writer schedule | Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

Cool sample daily schedule for writers.

(Source: thevariegatedlife.com)

1 MONTH AGO

schedules routines writing freelance writing blogging

How to Convert Pinterest Visitors to Subscribers | Building Readership, Pinterest

Tips for optimizing your articles and sidebar to keep Pinterest visitors coming back to your blog.

2 MONTHS AGO

Pinterest blogging tutorials

10 More Amazon Associate Program Lessons I Learned on My Way to Six Figure Earnings : @ProBlogger

General helpful lessons for increasing your Amazon Associates affiliate earnings.

3 MONTHS AGO -  1

amazon amazon associates affiliates revenue blogging 1 note

Resizing Images for Amazon Associates, Squidoo, Zazzle – Squidbits – Greekgeek's Squidoo Blog

How to resize images based on the Amazon affiliate code.

I often want a bigger image, and it can be a pain trying to force it (or download the larger image and upload it yourself — blargh, I say). Here’s how to alter the code to pull up the bigger images Amazon is already storing on its servers.

3 MONTHS AGO

amazon amazon associates affiliates images html coding blogging

Short Amazon affiliate links – a bookmarklet / Stoyan's phpied.com

Bookmarklet provides a short URL with “just the facts, ma’am” for your Amazon Associates linking. For instance, instead of having to travel to my Amazon Associates account to retrieve the bloated Amazon code, here’s the link for my book with the bookmarklet:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1453670645/?tag=laurenwayne-20

Easy, short, no bother.

3 MONTHS AGO -  1

affiliates amazon amazon associates marketing blogging 1 note

Dangerous Minds | FACEBOOK: I WANT MY FRIENDS BACK

On not getting eyes on your Facebook posts and the implications of paying to promote.

3 MONTHS AGO

facebook promotion marketing Social media

On the sad lives of internet trolls.

Lindy West at Back Fence PDX (by Back Fence PDX)

4 MONTHS AGO

comments trolls blogging Social media

How to increase Facebook Page Posts fan interaction.

Really helpful tips for what types of FB updates get the most fan views and how to keep FB from penalizing what you post!

(Source: themahoganyway.wordpress.com)

4 MONTHS AGO

facebook Social media blogging

MomAgain@40: Poetry of a Hobo Mama - We are never alone

Happy for this review of my poetry book!

One of the most poignant life-altering changes that new parents have to cope with. “Mothers are never alone” But is also a reminder to me that mothers also share the same journey, and in that we are never alone!

6 MONTHS AGO

writing reviews book reviews poetry

My parenting poetry book on sale this weekend only!

Happy Thanksgiving! I have a gift for you out of gratitude for your faithful readership.

This deal on my book of parenting poetry, Poetry of a Hobo Mama: The First Three Years, has never happened before! For this Thanksgiving weekend ONLY, the price has been reduced to $9.99 with FREE shipping!

Here's how it works — you can buy either from Amazon or directly from me for the same price:

Buy the book at Amazon, where I've reduced the price to $9.99 through Tuesday, November 27. The price is regularly $11.99. The paperback is eligible for FREE Super-Saver Shipping on Amazon orders over $25, so either fill up your cart to get to that level or pay Amazon's shipping fee. (I unfortunately can't provide discount codes on Amazon.)

OR:

Buy directly from me at my CreateSpace author's store. Enter code 4PV6AMYR for $3.59 off each copy, bringing the reduced price down to $6.40 plus shipping. CreateSpace shipping starts at $3.59, so it will be $9.99 with FREE shipping, and each additional copy in the same shipment will be cheaper and cheaper since the shipping decreases per item the more you buy!

Giveaway: ourfeminist{play}school review of Poetry of a Hobo Mama

I'm so happy to have a giveaway at ourfeminist{play}school for TWO ebook copies of Poetry of a Hobo Mama. From the lovely review:

Lauren’s ability to capture the reality and heart-galloping love of parenting is unique in its honesty and breadth. Through the flow of her concise language a reader is taken into bedrooms, hospitals, and the intimacy of a nursing moment; the depth that this poet is able to extract from a single stanza is not to go unnoticed.

Too often when parenting we are reminded by those who have taken the journey ahead of us to snap photos, to write it all down. […] Lauren Wayne’s poetry gives parents the gift of retracing their own steps through their own winding road of parenting by sharing what is most intimate and paradoxically the most commonly shared among us. A gem in the parenting poetry genre.

Aw! I'm so honored and touched by her words.

Read the full review and enter the giveaway by November 25 over at ourfeminist{play}school. This would make a lovely holiday gift for a parent in your life who could use some poetry!

MomAgain@40 review: We are never alone — Poetry of a Hobo Mama

I'm so thankful for this review from MomAgain@40 of Poetry of a Hobo Mama:

I am really enjoying the honest look into motherhood. […]

I love her honesty as well as her excursions with attachment- and natural parenting style.

The poetry is a raw and honest account of pregnancy, miscarriage, birth, babies and motherhood. […]

I am copying one of the poems. One of the most poignant life-altering changes that new parents have to cope with. "Mothers are never alone" But is also a reminder to me that mothers also share the same journey, and in that we are never alone!

Read the full review and the poem over at MomAgain@40.

Giveaway: Poetry of a Hobo Mama at Hybrid Rasta Mama {5.9; Worldwide}

I'm giving away a copy of my book, Poetry of a Hobo Mama, over at the fabulous blog Hybrid Rasta Mama.

Please read Jennifer's honest review, enter the giveaway, and enjoy the parenting-inspired poetry!

Lauren Wayne of Hobo Mama fame, one of the two lovely mamas who founded and run the Natural Parents Network, is both an author and a poet in her own right. I had known for some time that she had a collection of poetry but had kind of ignored it. I always felt bad because I love supporting other mamas in their creative endeavors but truth be told, I was worried if I read it I would not like it. This would not be a function of Lauren or her poetic skills, but instead a function of my indifference to poetry.

Did you know that April is Poetry Month? Well it is and I decided what better way to support Lauren than to sit down, read Poetry of a Hobo Mama from start to finish, then share my impressions with you. I took off my “aversion to poetry glasses” and put on my “let’s see what Hobo Mama brings to the table glasses.” You know what? I am really, really glad that I did.

Enter now on the giveaway post at Hybrid Rasta Mama! Giveaway ends May 9 (date extended due to technical difficulties) and is open worldwide.