Healing through art

September 25, 2024

Over the span of three days, Madison Miller wrote 52 poems about her complicated relationship with her father.

"I had to do something with my words so that I could cope," Miller explained. "My family on that side tends to forget the entirety of my existence. So instead of crying over it, I just wrote."

She added, "Poetry just speaks in ways that I can't, so publishing this book has brought me a profound sense of peace."

After completing the poems, Miller, a senior English for new media major from Newell, S.D., organized them into a book. She showed a couple of the poems to her mom.

"She said, 'Madison, I do not care what they say about me, publish it,'" Miller shared.

She then went about preparing to publish her first poetry book, "He doesn't deserve to know me" by securing her copyrights for a $65 fee. While publishers reached out to her, Miller decided to self-publish instead. She chose to go through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), which is Amazon Direct Publishing.

"I chose to go through that path because it doesn't matter to me who buys it," she said. "It matters that it's the closing of the chapter in my life."

As part of the self-publishing process, Miller designed her own cover art, another passion of hers. She chose forget-me-not flowers and butterflies to symbolize her growth as a person. She also featured a bee to represent the matching tattoo she has with her father.

In sharing her story, she is not only closing that chapter of her life, but she's also hoping to reach others who have had similar experiences.

"To feel ignored by someone who's supposed to take care of you your whole life, that's a heavy burden to bear and a lot of people feel it," she said. "That's the main reason I put this into the world, because you're not alone and it can feel like such an isolating experience to know that a parent doesn't want you."

While some of her family were upset to learn Miller was struggling with these feelings, her mother's side of the family has been very supportive of her book.

Miller describes herself as a poet at heart, but she also loves writing fiction and is currently working on a few novels. Her advice for other writers interested in sharing their stories is to go for it.

"As a writer, you are an artist," she said. "You're creating a piece of art. And like an artist, you will be the most critical of your own work, but being able to lay a part of yourself on a page that other people can feel, that's amazing."

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