Dear Friends,

I would like to introduce you to my wonderful friend, Selma Martin, and spotlight her debut poetry book that was released in July, In the Shadow of Rainbows. If you haven’t met Selma, I suggest you visit her ‘corner on the web’ where she shares her brilliant poetry in all forms. You will be glad you did! So sit back, relax, get comfy, and enjoy the Q & A:

1. Tell me something about yourself/your life that readers wouldn’t know otherwise:

I think you will smile at this. But not too long ago, when the younger of my two sons was in high school, I was the lead singer in a school band. Yup, me! This is how it happened: besides offering extracurricular classes to its students on Saturdays, my son’s school offered to the kids’ parents. My husband, a history enthusiast, opted for history classes, and I, hoping to cover the same two hours at the school as him, chose to spend my time practicing in a music group. And get this, not just any group–a Samba group! Are you smiling yet? Seeing as I don’t play any instruments, I was bestowed the honor of lead singer… and you got it– yup, Portuguese language! Years prior, I took an off-campus extension course in Portuguese and felt an affinity with the language, so seeing that option in the list drew me in. We practiced hard– at my house, in studios during the week, and on Saturdays at the high school and performed at school events for two years in a row. It was so much fun–that feeling has remained with me as precious. Time well spent. 

2. Tell me why you wrote In The Shadow of Rainbows:

I enjoy writing. And I attribute this to my late mother who encouraged me to write thank-you notes to friends and acquaintances for everything. We were not affluent, so these appreciation notes did plenty for us. As a young girl, my late mother got me my first pen pal from abroad, and I learned the real joy of sending, receiving, and waiting on precious letters to arrive. My mother was the only one who kept loyal to my hand-written letters when I left home. And whenever she found requests for submissions in old magazines (usually outdated), she always sent them my way. But I was never brave or confident or felt worthy enough to do any of that.  After Mom died in 2014 and thereafter felt at a loss when no letters arrived for me, I felt prompted to seek a way to fill that void. I enrolled in an online writing community in 2017, started blogging and pen-paling (through my newsletters), and interacting with like-minded writers until eventually I arrived here, and writing a poetry book felt like the right thing to do. Because my mother found me worthy, and others have shown that they like my words, I dedicated my first book to the people investing their trust in me and holding my book. And to me, that translates to my dear mother looking down at me from heaven approvingly. 

In ‘In The Shadow of Rainbows’ I include a page about what I want my poems to do: I want to contribute a verse; want to write poems of awareness; want my poetry to be a springboard to the sacred; want to delight you; and attempt to offer a form to heal.  ‘Are you my mother?’  Each poem will ask. The poems are not autobiographical, and in the 60+ in this book, there’s only one poem ‘about’ MY mother. All the others are about someone else, and now that you know more about my intent in this collection, I invite readers to come find their poems. 

3. Share one poem from the book and tell me what inspired it:

Slice of Life

Flanked between two wanings, I live you,
planting the light hours with loving acts,
for you, for us, for our ménage,
and when I meet the dusk, filled,
ready for our mingling at the table,
where we swap slices of lived moments
of the same day, hearts swell replete.

I chose one of the shortest poems in the collection to share with you. It’s strategically placed as the penultimate poem in the book, and I’m happy to elucidate on this poetry form that touched me. 
In its true form, it’s a Kwansaba poem, an African American verse form of praise: a praise poem that celebrates family. The Kwansaba (Swahili kwan -first fruit/saba -principle) was created in 1995 by Eugene B Redmond, East St. Louis Poet Laureate and professor of English at Southern Illinois University-East St. Louis. The form was developed in honor of the celebration of Kwanzaa. The poetic form adopts the number 7 from Kwanzaa’s Nguzo Saba (7 principles) as well as embraces its roots in the South African tradition of the Praise Poem. 

The 7 principles of Kwanzaa are unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith. Each day of the celebration focuses on one of the principles. Isn’t this just such a beautiful principle? I think it is, as all the principles take off at unity which starts at the family level. (ready for our mingling at the table).

I wrote it originally for a dVerse prompt in December 2021–then, I abbreviated some words to meet the exact count of sevens but changed it a bit for clarity to include in the book. It’s about family, and I hope you like it. 

To preview Selma’s book and to purchase your very own copy, click below:

4. If you were to leave a ‘message in a bottle’ for the future, what would you say?

Just for you:
Stop waiting for Friday. For summer.
For someone to fall in love with you.
For luck. For permission.

Happiness is achieved when you stop waiting for it.

Stop looking for yourself in others.
In things.
In outside validation.
In trends. In drugs.

Everything you are is already within you. Trust!

Make the best of the moment you are in now, for this moment is the only one that matters.
Please make it so that WHEREVER you go, you ARE there. Fully present.

Believe that you are no mistake. Believe that you are the Miracle you’ve been waiting for.

Manifest goodness and let goodness be your guide.

Find your anchor and pivot. Trust the ambiguity of tomorrow and know that if you are everything you can be in every moment, the ambiguity of the future will not be as scary as it sounds.
Now go on and live your best life. Today.
***
© selmamartin

SELMA MARTIN’S BIO:

Selma Martin is a retired English teacher with 20 years of teaching children ESL. She believes in people’s goodness and in finding balance in simple living. She lives in Japan with her husband of thirty-three years. In 2018, Selma participated in a networking course whose final lesson was to publish a story on Amazon. After many failed attempts, she completed the course and self-published her short story, Wanted: Husband/Handyman, in 2019. Later, collaborating with peers from that course, she published Wanted: Husband/Handyman in an anthology, Once Upon A Story: A Short Fiction Anthology. Selma has published stories on Medium for many years, in MasticadoresUSA, The Poetorium At Starlight, Short Fiction Break, and Spillwords. After her first NaPoWriMo 2021, Selma writes poetry on her website, selmamartin.com, and in July 2023, published a debut poetry collection on Amazon. 
You can find Selma, selmawrites, on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. But if you wish to engage and create a meaningful interaction with Selma: add value, nurture trust, and share engaging content from the ordinary perspective of someone navigating life in today’s high-paced culture, you may join her once-a-month pen pal newsletter. She goes slower and savors the gentle rhythm of life, much like her practice of snail mail, which she learned so many many moons ago. 

You can connect with Selma on her blog, selmamartin.com and the other social media platforms below:

Blog Instagram Facebook

Thanks always for stopping by, and I hope you’ll immerse yourself in the tranquility of Selma’s lovely book!
Tomorrow, I will post my 5-star review, so I hope to see you then! ❤️

© Lauren Scott, Baydreamerwrites.com – All rights reserved.