POETRY: THE OTHER PRESCRIPTION, How I wrote ILLICIT CROISSANTS AT DAWN (and other poems)
A few months before Covid, I gradually went from being an active, sporty woman whose life revolved around horses, to an aching, anxious person whose body hurt all the time. I saw numerous doctors who couldn’t find anything wrong with me to justify so much pain, and who repeatedly sent me home with high doses of anti-inflammatories. Soon, my intestines became extremely unhappy, to the point where I couldn’t leave the house. A diagnosis for this came relatively quickly: I had developed an incurable Irritable Bowel Disease (IBD) that would hopefully be “controlled” with medication. The initial medication prescribed didn’t work. Meanwhile, the pain throughout my body continued, gradually getting worse.
I have always had the capacity to reinvent myself according to my circumstances and make the best of whatever life throws my way. I’m creative, I’m happy to crochet, sew, paint. This time, however, I became increasingly depressed. My thoughts began to scare me. I knew I had to find something to grasp onto, something to pull me forwards. Something to replace my passion for horses.
In June 2023 I republished JUST LIKE A MOVIE, a romantic comedy I wrote years ago, after getting the rights back from my publisher. I enjoyed lightly editing the book; it put me back in the writing groove. But could I put the groove back in my writing? I hadn’t written anything in two decades, apart from a couple of blog posts for the website my daughter set up for me during Covid.
In the following months I wrote a few pieces for my website. When I heard about Substack and went to have a look I was intimidated by the quality of the writing and all the “big names”. Nevertheless, I plucked up the courage to tiptoe in, calling my account Just For Fun, hoping that the name would show people I wasn’t a “serious writer”, and that I wouldn’t get in trouble if I published stuff that totally sucked. I reposted a couple of pieces I’d written for my website and shyly began to interact with other writers.
Someone told me about Beth Kempton, a writer who runs a popular, quarterly “Tiny Poem” series, proposing daily word prompts over a few weeks. The goal is to write a poem in ten minutes, using the word, with no editing.
Although I’d never been interested in poetry, hadn’t read any since high school, and believed it to be obscure, undecipherable, and reserved for literary intellectuals, Beth Kempton’s challenge sounded like fun. So, I jumped into her winter series and wrote my very first poem on February 12, 2024. The prompt was “WOLF”.
To my surprise, I began to wake up excited every day, wondering what the prompt was going to be. I was having fun with words, and my Substack handle now made perfect sense; I was writing poetry for fun!
When Beth’s prompts ended, I kept going. I wrote a poem every day, sometimes even several. I wrote poems in my head; I wrote poems in my bed. I wrote poems on planes; I wrote poems in Spain. I dabbled with haiku; I found inspiration everywhere. I bought poetry books, subscribed to poets on Substack. All I wanted to do was read and write poetry!
I have written close to 400 poems since publishing “Wolf” last year. I’ve written about friendship, relationships, old crushes, holidays, kindness, self-confidence, mental health, trees, food, horses, my parents, getting older, American politics, children, clothes, shoes, cats, rabbits, birds, acupuncture, and meanies. I’ve mentioned the rooster next door, and the owl in the tree behind our house.
Encouraged by some of my subscribers, I began to toy with the idea of putting together a poetry compilation illustrated by my daughter, Olivia, who is fashion photographer and mixed media artist in the UK.
I knew I didn’t want to go through the process of querying agents to try to find a publisher. I’m 63 years old, I’m not exactly glowing with health, so why hang around waiting for a miracle? I had an agent years ago; I know how hard it is to get fiction published, and I’m pretty confident that no publisher in his right mind is going to get excited about a collection of poems written by an old, sick newbie who lives in Switzerland.
I’m still sick. I’m still in pain. I have good days, meh days, and bad days. My IBD is not under control (yet), and last autumn I was at long last diagnosed with fibromyalgia and given appropriate pain medication. I’ve found better, more specialized doctors, but my life remains much smaller than it used to be. There are weeks on end when I can’t go out much, and all the medication makes me tired.
But writing poetry and putting this book together has given me a purpose, taken my mind off my problems. It’s made me feel excited and given me some of my confidence back. It’s connected me with people all over the world in a time when I’ve felt lonely and isolated. I love my book’s title, ILLICIT CROISSANTS AT DAWN. I love the cover and all the artwork my daughter, Olivia Bossert, has produced. I’m proud of myself for doing all this work despite being unwell, and I’m especially proud of how funny, joyful and uplifting most of the poems in this collection are!
Even if you’ve never read poetry before and believe – like I did – that poetry is obscure and indecipherable, maybe you’ll change your mind when you dip into ILLICIT CROISSANTS AT DAWN. I don’t consider myself intellectual, I just love playing with words. I write to keep myself entertained, so hopefully you will find my words entertaining, too.
And if you’re a poetry connoisseur, I still hope you’ll read my poems and emerge with a grin, or a sigh, or a sweet memory, or a nod of recognition. I hope they’ll touch you as much as they touched me.
ILLICIT CROISSANTS AT DAWN will be available very soon.
And, gosh! Look how pretty the cover is!
With love and thanks to all those who have encouraged me on this journey,
Meanwhile, my romantic comedy, JUST LIKE A MOVIE, is perfect to chase away a head full of world cacophony. Escape to Ibiza and fall in love. Not just with a man, but with the island, the lifestyle, the views. Although the man is super hot. And so nice!
Francesca