My Story: A Memoir in Poetry and Prose
From the author of I Wanted to Grow Old With You and
A Widow’s Words comes a new collection of empowering poems and essays focused on life, love, and gaining wisdom and
self-confidence as we age.
More than 100 poems and essays about life, love, grief, acceptance, and self-discovery
My Story is a compelling memoir composed of more than one hundred poems and essays that explore the author’s life, inner conflict, and eventual journey to self-acceptance. This often poignant and frequently humorous collection explores issues that plagued the author in her childhood and teens and how the birth of her son became the catalyst that pushed her to triumph over anxiety, self-sabotage, and negative self-image, and ultimately to a journey of self-discovery.
The memoir touches on profound themes including generational trauma, anxiety, and widowhood, but also captures the joys of motherhood, the delights of love and marriage, valuable life lessons, and overcoming our inner critic to achieve body positivity and self-love.
Seniors will especially appreciate the poems devoted to the unpredictability of dating over sixty, the joys of grandparenting, and coming to terms with aging.
Beautifully written, My Story is an honest personal account of one woman’s life journey that will resonate with anyone who has battled lifetime insecurities to achieve personal growth, self-acceptance, and inner peace.
A perfect gift for:
- Poetry lovers
- Women and men of all ages
- Seniors coming to terms with aging
- Anyone in search of positive and empowering books
- Gift-givers in search of unique presents
Lost in Translation
If love languages are a real thing
Then my father and I
Were from different countries
He was from the land of
You have a roof over your head
And food on the table
And want for nothing
While I work overtime to pay for it
On my one day off, I cut the lawn
Before cooking the Sunday dinner
And when you’re older, and your son has no dad,
I’ll fill that role, too
But I was from a different land
Starved for affirmation
Aware of every criticism
Longing for words he rarely said
I needed to hear
“I love you”
And now, I understand
That’s exactly what he was saying
DNA
I view the whole picture
Chance and fate
The ancestors who met
While living their own journeys
Some desired a new land
Channeled the wind in their sails
In pursuit of better lives
Seeking fortunes unknown
English
Scottish
German
French
Canadian
Irish
That all of them collided and became
the great
constellation
of my
ancestry
Seems miraculous
We are all the product of
a million
split-
second
decisions by
Hundreds of forebears
Those lucky survivors of
storms
wars
famines and
plagues
We are the result of
centuries
of
love
stories
Suddenly,
I feel
uniquely
meant to be
I Cannot Stop the Bombs
I cannot stop the bombs launched in the night
Or bring those murdered children back to life
I cannot heal the wounded and the maimed
I cannot bring forth peace in time of strife
I cannot fathom how these men of power
So blithely choose to wipe these lives away
How centuries of land disputes and pride
Can still cause pain and death in present day
I do not have the wisdom to choose sides
While living in a land forefathers stole
But I shed tears for all those suffering souls
Whose lives are ruined and cannot be made whole
I watch here in the comfort of my home
The gruesome scenes, the horrors on my screen
The body bags, the blood, the tears, the pain
And reel in shock and sorrow from the scene
And day by day, my anger grows and grows
That foolish men so callously kill and maim
And night by night, I cry for those who suffer
And try to find exactly who to blame
Atrocities continue to unfold
All eyes are centered now on this one place
The whole world witnesses the horror
We see the agony etched on every face
Yet to my sorrow all that I can do
Is write my heart out watching all this strife
I cannot stop the bombs launched in the night
Or bring those innocent children back to life
Katherine Billings Palmer
Author ~ Poet ~ Essayist ~ Blogger
About the Author
Katherine Billings Palmer is an author, poet, and essayist from Garden City, Michigan. She retired from her technical writing career in 2022 to pursue her writing career. Her current book, My Story: A Memoir in Poetry and Prose is a compilation of more than 100 poems and essays about life, death, love, mistakes, and coming to terms with mortality. It’s now available in print and Kindle versions on Amazon.
In 2017, Katherine’s husband, Rick, died of complications from small cell lung cancer. She wrote a series of poems and essays about her struggles to cope with her grief. Her book of poetry, I Wanted to Grow Old With You, is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions. In January 2019, she published, A Widow’s Words: Grief, Reflection, Prose, and Poetry – The First Year, also available on Amazon.com.
Katherine’s essay, “Garbage Day” was published in the 2021 Bear River Review.
Katherine is a guest blogger for the Hope for Widows Foundation and writes about her grief journey at www.TheWritingWidow.com.
Books by Katherine Billings Palmer
- A Widow’s Words: Grief, Reflection, Prose, and Poetry – The First Year
- I Wanted to Grow Old With You: A Widow’s First Year of Grief in Poetry
“I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”
Flannery O’Connor
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