My Publishing Story

     For my English project, I was told to self-publish a poem that I had written myself. At first, I was extremely puzzled. How am I going to publish my poem not only to the world, but in a creative, original way?? I already had a huge difficulty trying to come up with a poem that I was proud of (I guess that's what they call a slump...). It took me a long time to write a poem, but then a few days later, I revised it to my liking. Through this post, you will see what I have done to publish my poem in the past couple of days.

My Secret Place

The old, rusty wooden door slowly creaks open

A gush of wind blows in, picking up leaves as if uncovering an unseen trail

Surrounded by tall, whimsical trees, hearing the birds’ sweet tune and the sound of rustling leaves

Beneath the cool shade, a soft dirt road to be ran across barefooted as if it were sand

But the coolness vanishes, tall grass tickling your legs replaces the road and an open meadow now lies ahead

Basking under the warmth of the sun’s rays, making you feel safe as in a mother’s embrace, with the wind gently hitting your face

Birds soaring up above in the blue sky as clear as glass and the grass swaying in harmony with the wind

Flowers as bright as neon lights colour the bright green field

Fingers laced behind my head, my back against the soft terrain, and the grass dancing around me, shielding me from the harsh, merciless, cruel world

This is where I lay, in my secret place

     Firstly, I had to start simple, because this was the very beginning of my long journey to publishing. Plus, the first ideas that I could come up with were quite simple. But as I continued to post and publish, I think that I eventually got the hang of things. I decided to post my poem where there were many people. Now where would this be?? Of course! The UBC Bus Loop! Therefore, I posted my poem on the poles.

          Now, a single piece of white paper would not attract anybody's attention, for there were already thousands, so I glued them on brightly colour folders so that the colours would not only attract attention, but the movement of one side through the wind would as well. Surprisingly, the responses were quite good. I was quite shocked to see people actually reading my poem. Let's just say, a surge of pride and happiness overwhelmed me. This was a great start.

     Seeing some strangers actually reading my poem was fantastic. I was extremely wary at first, but these people gave me the confidence to continue to post around the UBC area, resulting in my next idea, posting in my secret place.

     Whenever we visited my sister at UBC, my mom and I would always go to this bench that gave a breathtaking view of the rose garden and the mountains. This was where I could talk to her about anything that was worrying me. Although not that secretive, this was where my mom and I would always talk without any of my family members knowing. Since I wrote a poem about a secret place, this spot immediately came to mind and I knew that I had to post it here.

     I went out on Saturday, and it was really windy. My original plan was to tape a trail onto the floor with the final poem at the end, but the wind was not on my side, and of course, my tape would not hold the poem in place. Posting on the fence was my last resort, and thank the heavens that it worked!

     Again, I took some pictures of people reading my poem, and the happy feeling came back. Unfortunately, I could not stay for a long time because I had other destinations to plan and other ideas to create. I really thought that nobody would even care for a piece of paper that had colourful marker on it, but I was completely wrong. People actually read it, and one lady even asked me what was it for. Due to all of this good feedback, I could not wait for my next day's plans.

     I wanted to grab even more peoples' attention, but was incapable of thinking how to do so. Then, the idea of a post-it picture came to my mind after several agonizing hours of thinking. I made my picture as soon as I came home from UBC, wrote my poem on it, and was nearly bursting with excitement for the next morning to come. I packed my things and travelled to the Old Barn, hoping to post my poem somewhere. Sadly, there were not that many people outside, and it was almost deserted inside by the time I arrived. I had no choice but to put my poem on a bench, but that was not working either. Although people looked, no angle of the camera would capture it, so that was a complete disaster. I walked back home in shame, thinking that I wasted all of my time on this picture for nothing. But, on my way back, a couple of elderly people reading were actually quite interested in my poster, wanting to read my poem.

     I had to put my poem close to their faces so that they could read it properly. I was so bummed from the earlier events, so I was really disappointed that only a couple people read it, well, the ones that I captured on camera anyway. However, one of the ladies told me that my poem was beautiful, and that I should continue writing. This brightened up my day and gave me the strength to try at least one more time. As I sat in my chair, I finally knew what I did wrong. It wasn't about how complex and outgoing the idea was, it just had to be simple, but original. I didn't have to go so far out of the box because that didn't seem to do much either. So, I backtracked and started from square one.

     I already had bookmarks made the night before, prepped and ready for posting on the mailboxes in my apartment. Out of all of the ideas, I was scared of the outcome of this idea the most because I thought that everybody would just throw them in the garbage bin nearby, and I did not want to see my poem in the trash. As a result, I just put my fears aside and posted them, waiting for the worst.

     Unexpectedly, people began to slowly take my bookmarks. After the first day, four were gone, and then more started to disappear, but NONE of them were put into the garbage, which really shocked me. What surprised me even more was that somebody left a small post-it note after my big one (explaining why there were bookmarks on their mailboxes), and they said that they enjoyed the poem and that they were thankful. That made me smile the whole day, knowing that, Hey, maybe I really underestimated people and myself. My Bookmarks

     And last but certainly not least, I posted my poems onto balloons and handed them out to parents and children. There were still at least two days left until the project was due, but really, there was only one day left, for I needed one day to finish this beautiful post. I could not think of anything else to do, so I contacted some of my friends who were doing the same project. We all had the same feeling of wanting to do at least one more thing. So, we spent the whole night trying to come up with an idea for all of us, and I got rewarded the idea of balloons. I targeted adults and the elderly with my previous posts around UBC, but I never had an idea where I tried to target children, and this idea would be the bridge that would connect my poem with the kids. We went out to the Old Barn and blew up balloons, tied string, and taped my poems onto the balloons, starting to hand them out after we were done. The reactions were great and the kids actually really loved them. Not only did some of the kids read the poem, but their parents also read the poems as well, which was even better. My Balloons

     That was such a great end to my project. I was dead tired by the time I came home. Although the project required lots of thinking and there were many challenges, I actually had a really fun time, a lot more than I thought I would. I hope that my poems inspired some people and made them feel something in their hearts. After all of the hard work, blood, sweat, and tears, I am very proud of the results and would not change a single thing.