Book Blast: A JOURNEY THROUGH FEELINGS by Paul Guerin

 

A Journey Through Feelings

by Paul Guerin

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

GENRE: Poetry - Inspirational

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

BLURB:

 

Poetry: writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience, in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm.

 

Poetry means different things to different people. For me, it is all about feelings. If it captures the emotions of the reader, a poem will resonate and fill the soul. It can mean everything to one person and not much at all to another. The mood of the reader and no-one else determines the outcome.

 

For example, love poems are wonderful when you are in love and their passion is amazing. If you are facing adversity, however, love poems likely will just annoy or even anger you.

 

In "Poetry from my Heart", I have attempted to divide the poems into categories which will fit your mood no matter what you are experiencing at the time you choose to explore them. There should be something for everyone, no matter whether you are in love, out of love, you hurt, you are lonely, angry, abandoned, or you are facing other challenges in your life.

 

Poetry has a healing power that nurtures the soul and quietens the mind, and so I hope that whatever your situation is in life, you will find something here that helps you safely on your journey.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Excerpt One:

 

You awoke my world

 

I met you and you awoke my world

Suddenly the birds sang louder

And the music seemed more magical

Our souls touched and our hearts beat as one

 

We both know that this is not possible

We will pinch each other to see if it is real

We both know there are hurdles ahead

But just now we do not care

 

I promise you I will never control you

Promise me you will love me always

Let us promise each other forever friendship

Let’s become the best friends of our dreams

 

I promise you can be free with me

That I will always want you to fly on your own

I will always be here for you no matter what

I swear these promises to the God inside my soul

 

Time will pass and we will climb mountains

We are a team of simple, pure, amazing grace

The changes we have made in our lives are huge

Let’s move forward with the speed of mutual lightening

 

At times I feel afraid of the pace and the risks this change may bring

At times I simply want to be alone to figure the right path

At times I stagger, falling and getting back up

Always, I have been there for you without a word

 

When you need space, it is freely yours to have

I will never hold you when you need to be free

My soul will never smother your free spirit

I will always hold you when you need to be held

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 GUEST POST

Topic: What was my writing journey like?

My writing journey spanned 70 years. Here is a brief summary of what happened!

“I was Irish, young and bold and there was nothing I couldn’t do – now that I am wiser and old, I know that wasn’t true. Fear manifesting in arrogance, turned into shame ……. eventually I could no longer play the game….”

As a very young boy living in a small Irish townland village community, poetry was the least of my concerns. Living in poverty meant surviving day by day and eating what was available – sometimes very little was and our vegetables of choice were nettles!

All was not bad, for there was Irish music everywhere and the lyrics were magic to my young ears. My uncle played an accordion in an Irish show band and there were ghost stories my Irish Nana told me that scared the b’jasus out of me. There was no lack of things to stimulate the imagination, poor as we were. Nana herself was a small in stature, sporting a black dress, black shawl and a wicked temper driving a razor-sharp tongue. She was a formidable influence indeed!

My Irish roots are where my poetry came from. It didn’t happen right away as my roots were pulled when I was grabbed up and taken to live in England at age 6.

In England I was physically safe, had enough to eat and lived in a home with an actual toilet and running water. But emotionally I was in permanent free-fall. My Irish roots were torn out and I had nightmares for years about my shipboard journey from Cork to Cardiff, Wales and then the long train ride from Cardiff to Paddington Station in London. Unceremoniously dragged from my quiet Irish village, I experienced the serious trauma which was the genesis of many of the poems I wrote in later years. We say that good often comes from bad and my gift from the trauma was the ability to express my deep and darkest feelings in poems and share them with others.

In my teenage years, I attended an English Public School as a live-in boarder. There I had the chance to study Elizabethan history and English literature. It was there that I discovered and read poets such as Wordsworth and Coleridge, Keats and Shelley and William Shakespeare to name a few. Part of my studies involved analysing the meaning of the works and the other part was observing the writing styles.  It was there that I fell in love with the rhyming couplet style of writing.

As mentioned in the introduction to my book, my journey has been difficult and along with the early childhood trauma, there emerged the twins of fear and insecurity. For years I masked these with arrogance and anger – and my “proverbial inner asshole” ruled the roost!

I started expressing my feelings in poetry that seemed relevant to the times and situations. This was necessary therapy for me and helped me deal with the failures, disappointments and emotional pain that plagued me for years.  A friend of mine refers to these painful episodes as “designer experiences” and that is exactly what they are – they redesigned my psyche and changed my life.

My book title says it all – “Poetry from My Heart – A Journey through Feelings”.  The poems are my feelings from real life experiences and because of that, they will resonate with and I believe bring comfort to, readers who face similar challenges. This book of poetry is my legacy to my family and friends and I hope also that it will provide hope, happiness and healing to those who need it.

Warmly,

Paul Guerin   

 

 

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

 

As a very young boy, I lived in a small Irish townland village called Castletownroche. The village was situated in the very beautiful and pastoral County Cork. I had an Irish uncle who played in a showband and who taught me to fish at age four. I wrote a poem about that. My mother was absent and I never knew my father. I wrote another poem about that. We lived in abject poverty. I survived by the grace and loving kindness of an old Irish grandmother sporting a black dress, black shawl and a wicked temper driving a razor-sharp tongue. I called her Nana.

 

Nana taught me to fear her retribution and used it to keep me safe and provide security that I could find nowhere else. Well into my teens, my inner world was cast in fear and I had no real sense of belonging or attachment to anyone or to anything. The inability to handle those feelings eventually led me to substance abuse. My journey along that road has generated much of the poetry of adversity, hope, and inspiration that you will find in this book. I truly hope that those poems in particular will salve the souls of those of you who are still trudging that happy road to destiny on your way back from hell.

 

Not surprisingly, I have had difficulty in maintaining healthy relationships throughout my life, and much of the love poetry is about those failures and many, many, sorry attempts to return to love. Those painful/happy experiences had a major influence on my writing.

 

Connect with Paul Guerin

 

WEBSITE https://paulguerinpoems.com/

 

FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/paulguerinpoems

 

GOODREADS https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60876796-poetry-from-my-heart

 

Buy a copy of Poetry from My Heart             

 

AMAZON.COM https://amazon.com/dp/0228865654

 

AMAZON.CA https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0228865654

 

INDIGO CHAPTERS https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/poetry-from-my-heart-a/9780228865650-item.html

 

BARNES & NOBLE https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/poetry-from-my-heart-paul-guerin/1141245062

 

BOOK DEPOSITORY https://www.bookdepository.com/Poetry-from-My-Heart-Paul-Guerin/9780228865650

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

GIVEAWAY

 

Paul Guerin will be awarding a $15 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway