Wandering Soul: My new poetry book inspired by my mother

Some time ago, I was putting together a poetry collection that was larger than my normal poetry books. This was my “big book of poetry.” At first, it was going to be a general collection of poems, and not a themed collection, but it did eventually turn into a themed collection. The poems cut out of this book were relegated to other themed poetry books.

One such book is WanderingSoul, a collection of poems I recently self-published.

The poem “Wandering Soul” was inspired by my mother. Most of my childhood was spent moving from one place to another, one city to another. My mother could not stay in one place. She felt “the call of the road” which she constantly had to answer. Of course, this was frustrating for my dad and siblings, and especially for me and my siblings since we were constantly leaving our friends (one friend even remarked “You don’t stick around much, do you?” after I told him we were moving), but we wanted our mother to be happy. And nothing made her happier than being on the move. (I talk more about this in the book.)

Aside from my mother, however, some of the other poems in the book were also inspired by my own travels, as well as stories related to me that fit with this theme (again, I talk about that in the book). As I was writing the poems of my own experiences, I had to really try to dig up those memories of constantly being on the road. I recalled how one time we drove through a sand storm in Texas, and another, we got to see the Grand Canyon out our car windows. I recalled the beauty of driving through Nebraska and Tennessee, and the amazing sights I got to see going by train from Connecticut (where we once lived) to New York. There were just so many memories that made me smile and feel wistful for those experiences all over again. I did not write about those exact memories per se, but they did help me come up with other poems to include in this book.

Well, these days, I may not be moving from one place to another out of a sense of wanderlust, more for necessity, but I do still travel every once in a while. My daughter has also inherited that love for travel, even if she might get homesick or not feel well during the journey, so it’s still a family thing for us. We’re always ready to grab that opportunity to just go explore and take the road less traveled.

Wandering Soul is my latest poetry book inspired by my mother and her love for travel. It also celebrates my own love for travel. The poems can be enjoyed by anyone who also feels the need to “hit the road” every so often and answer that call of the road. For anyone who embraces a sense of wanderlust, who tramps the streets or rides the rails, who thumbs their way from one place to another or yearns to explore, Wandering Soul is a poetry book capturing that vagabond spirit in verse. I hope they see themselves in these poems, and that it inspires anyone who can only dream of traveling to pack their bags and “just go.”

Many thanks to Denise Bartlett for editing my poems and to Charlotte Holley for an amazing cover.

Here is the blurb:

For some people, home is the wide open road, where they feel the call to travel or explore the road not taken. For these wandering souls, their life is about journeying from one place to another and seeing the world for all of its beauty. Wandering Soul is a collection of poems capturing that vagabond spirit and the experience of travel. The poems in this book are meant for anyone who answers the call of the road, or who yearns to explore unknown territory.

Buy link