Tag Archives: Danielle Pitter

Date Published: 01-25-2025

EXCERPT

Preface

After the publication and success of my first book Reality Check in April 2022, I decided to spend the next year writing more poetry that gave updates about my life in its current state. My first book gave an insider’s look into where my life was during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, my family, and how I saw myself. 

Since Reality Check, many good things have come my way—many things that probably wouldn’t have happened had I not sat down two years before and written that first book. I’m so proud of myself and the work, time, and investment taken to create that body of work. 

But while these many blessings were coming my way, a lot of shadows started appearing mentally—shadows I’d thought I had done the work in therapy to move past. That’s why I needed to write more poems about my journey, to explore those shadows that creep up in the middle of the night, when the world is quiet and my brain has no choice but to unpack all of the mess from the past several years. These new poems in this collection were published originally on Patreon, so they are available on my page to read individually. I started to write these poems around the time of Reality Check’s release, so a lot of them are reactionary to how I had felt after my first book’s publication. 

I felt like these poems would fit best in a book rather than just online because I wanted to see them in a book format. I wanted others to read this body of work in a physical book format, where the reader isn’t glued to a screen all the time. I wanted readers to experience reading the way I did growing up, flipping through the pages, getting immersed in language, setting, writing style and characters. Much like Reality Check, I wanted this book to make readers think about their own experiences and learn from them. 

During the process of writing this book, I received my driver’s license after taking the road test only once. I got my first car three months later. A few poems in Part I were written during my first year of driving. I thought it would be an interesting concept to explore the intersection of learning how to drive with learning how to live my life. 

Part II describes my complicated relationship with sharing my first book with the world. I was so used to sharing for more than just a select few, that when it came time to share with everyone, my fear of being seen came out even more. 

In Part III, I dig a little deeper into other relationships, like families, friendships, and romantic relationships. Romance is something I have very little experience in, but I wanted to share those experiences in the best way I knew how, which is through writing.

What I’ve learned from writing these poems is that it’s okay to express emotions that others may find uncomfortable, like hurt, heartbreak, and disappointment. Often enough, people only look at the highlight reel of self-love, and not the in-between moments, like anxiety, pain, anguish, frustration, and depression. But those in-between moments are just as important to share as the highlight reel. 

This book is for anyone who needs to unpack their messy thoughts in the same way as I have. I hope this book takes you on a similar journey it did for me while writing it.

Currently, she’s a writer on her own website, PoetryBooksYA.com. She
also holds a Master of Information degree from Rutgers University.
Additionally, she is a member of the New Jersey Library Association.

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