BY JORDYN FORTE
In July 2020, amidst the chaos of COVID, senior Jenna Rohlman decided to pursue a dream of hers.
She finally achieved it in December 2021, when her book of poetry, “Words and Wounds,” was published.
Named after one of her poems, Rohlman said “Words and Wounds” was written with the intentions of helping readers explore a variety of emotions that are experienced by most at different points in their lives.
While Rohlman said her recently-published work wasn’t overly inspired by any specific poets or books, she did find inspiration in the large poetry community that she joined at age 16.
“I was collectively inspired by everyone who felt open enough to share [their] poetry,” she explained. “I made a poetry account on Instagram, so I kind of felt like I was in poetry community, and I saw how many people were self-publishing books that it became a goal in the back of my head that, eventually, when the time was right, I would want to publish a book.”
Being stuck at home as a result of the pandemic, Rohlman said she finally felt that the time was right in 2020.
“At the tail-end of the summer […] I had the time and the space to realize that it wasn’t going to happen if I didn’t pressure myself and just go for it,” Rohlman said. “I ended up texting my best friend from high school, Solomina Darko – the main person who supported my poetry when I had just started – and I asked her to be my editor,” Rohlman said. “When she said yes, it kind of helped me to really start the process just because I also had someone else on-board that was devoted to making sure that it would happen.”
The two, both full-time college students, then got to work, first, focusing on the manuscript of Rohlman’s books through weekly Zoom calls. Eventually, once college classes started up again, Rohlman and Darko began to meet only as needed.
“A majority of the work that we did was drafting up the manuscript, putting in all the poems I wanted, and then dwindling down on what I put in; I put in a bunch of poems, and I knew not all of them were going to make it to the final draft,” Rohlman said. “Once we had an idea of what we wanted for the pages and we didn’t think we were going to cut anything else out, we started doing grammatical editing and style editing and making sure everything sounded right and was grammatically correct.”
After narrowing “Words and Wounds” down to 117 pages, Rohlman said she and Darko then focused on the layout and organization of her book, which is divided into different sections, including self-love, love, heartbreak, and self-doubt sections.
“Organizing, I think, probably took the bulk of [our time],” Rohlman said. “Originally, it was just every single poem – there was no organization to it, so we started organizing it into certain sections that we thought would communicate the right story.”
Once Darko and Rohlman felt that the book was well-organized, the two went through the manuscript once more, again ensuring that the poems were formatted correctly and were mistake-free, Rohlman said.
One of the final steps in Rohlman’s publishing process was the naming of her book.
“My book title was actually one of the last things that I picked, just because I knew that a title is very important – it kind of showcases a lot just in those few words,” Rohlman explained. “When I was going through my book, and I saw that title, I kind of realized that it had that sort-of ring to it, and I really liked the play on words and the sound of it.”
With 2021 winding to a close and the finishing touches placed on Rohlman’s manuscript, all Darko and Rohlman had left to do was upload their materials to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Amazon’s free self-publishing program.
“Once we got to KDP, that was pretty easy to work with because we just uploaded the cover and all of the other details – like what genre it was and my name – and once we put that in, I just pretty much had to click publish,” Rohlman said.
On December 31, 2021, Rohlman’s year-and-a-half of hard work finally paid off, and “Words and Wounds” was officially published.
“I wanted [“Words and Wounds”] to be published in 2021 since that’s the bulk of the year that I spent working on it,” Rohlman explained.
While the process of self-publishing was taxing, Rohlman said she is happy that she did it.
“It’s worth it; the journey that you go through [to get there] is just as important as the end product,” she explained.
“It feels nice just to have people come up to me and talk about it or even just having the support from my friends because it is something I’m really proud of,” Rohlman said. “I’m very happy that people are able to read [“Words and Wounds”], and I’m hoping that it makes people feel less alone – even if they are just slightly touched by one poem, that would really make my day.”
"Words and Wounds" is available on Amazon. Click the link below to purchase.
Photo courtesy of Jenna Rohlman.
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