Poetry That Makes Motherhood Beautiful with Jessica Urlichs

[1:31]Zibby Owens: Hi. This is Zibby Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest best selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't have to. Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day. For more information, go to zibbymedia.com, and follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens. Jessica Ehrlichs is the author of They Bloom Because of You, Poems on the Infinite Love, Growth, and Magic of Motherhood. I discovered Jessica Ehrlichs several years ago when my husband Kyle gave me a poetry book of hers for, I think, Mother's Day, maybe Hanukkah. Anyway, I loved it and asked her to come on my podcast. She said she had something new in the works, and I should wait and interview her then. And so I did, and here is our interview. Jessica Ehrlichs is a Sunday Times bestselling author and poet who lives in New Zealand with her husband and three children. She has written a variety of children's books to help babies and young children navigate their emotions in the early years. Jess's honest and heartfelt poetry about her family and motherhood continue to be a source of guidance for mothers and parents alike around the world to connect. Welcome, Jessica. Thank you so much for coming on totally booked to discuss they bloom because of you, poems on the infinite love, growth, and magic of motherhood. Congratulations. Thank you. Aw. This book I'm so proud of it. You should be so proud of it. I'm glad to hear you say that. I feel like it just so touches every nerve. I'm a mother of four. You're a mother of three. I mean, you just get all the things as a daughter, as a mother, as a friend, as a dog mom. I mean, I don't know. I just, like, was dog earing every page. And this is not your first collection either. Tell me a little bit about the impetus for for this. And had you been writing? Because they go through all of the years of your kids' lives. Had you been writing all along? Yeah, well, when my

[3:46]Jessica Urlichs: second born was six months old, my first born was how old was he at the time? He would have been a year and a half, so they were a year apart. And I just needed to process what I was going through at the time because having two a year apart is no easy feat. And I did suffer from postnatal anxiety. At the time I didn't realise what that was. And I was the first of my friends to have a baby. And so I just found myself writing and that writing kind of turned into poetry. My husband said, You should be sharing this with people. There will be other moms out there who feel this way and you might make some connections. I was like, Oh, that's very scary, a very scary thought to put my heart out there like this. What if I'm judged? But it was this most resounding same, Me too. Oh my gosh, you get it. It was incredible. Guess And organically, I just grew this audience of moms just wanting to feel seen and heard. That's really how this whole thing started. How long ago was that? That would have been about six years ago now.

[5:07]Zibby Owens: So your your work is clearly hitting a nerve. My I first heard about you because my husband got me your Beautiful Chaos book for the holidays whenever it came out. And I remember almost crying reading that book and thinking, oh my gosh. Yes. And, you know, I've been a book person for a while, and for him to give me a book that resonated so well was, like, genius. Yeah. So I've been a fan of yours ever since. Thank you. Before we talk more about this particular collection, so you your husband suggested you share them. Did you post first? Did you write your collection first? You also write children's books. Like, when what was the chronology? How did everything happen? I mean, I've always loved writing. I wrote as a child.

[5:52]Jessica Urlichs: Wrote poems for my teachers, kept journals. It's it wasn't something that kind of just happened, but it kind of lay dormant for a very long time. And I think for most writers, when you feel this need to process something, you want to make sense of it, writing, even pen to paper, it's just so cathartic and it really helps. So I started with the writing first, and then I guess I kind of tiptoed online to see other mother accounts in that space. One thing I learned pretty quickly was my algorithm was feeding me mummy blogs quite a lot. Quite often, it made me feel less than because I was like, Oh gosh, my home doesn't look like that. I'm still in my dressing gown. How do they have a full face of makeup? So I was like, No, I need to be finding people who are in this postpartum phase that I'm at, ones that can admit things aren't perfect yet. We have days that we struggle, there are highs, there are lows. I need those people because I need to feel like I'm not alone in this. When I made connections with a few other mums who were sharing really openly and honestly in their space, It kind of gave me that vulnerable permission, I guess, to do the same. And that's how it started. And I guess over time it might have been a year of doing so. I had a collection big enough to self publish my first book. Did you consider traditional publishing or you just knew that's what you wanted to do? I didn't even consider it, to be honest. I didn't even think it was a possibility for me at all. The same happening along the way with the children's books? The children's books were a little bit different because when my first book was The Rainbow in My Heart, which I wrote for my son, who is on the spectrum, it's about a range of emotions, attaching those emotions to color. I really wanted to write something for him that would help him express himself, I guess. It's very hard to articulate how you're feeling at two years old. Sometimes it's hard as an adult. But I put this together and because I paired up with an illustrator who had already been published, she said, Hey, why don't we put the feelers out there and see if anyone would actually like to publish it? That's how that one came about. It actually didn't end up going through her publishers. They didn't want to take on the book. So I just started I know you're not supposed to do this, but I just started cold calling. I thought, What have I got to lose? At the end of the day, yes, I feel a little bit upset that they didn't want the book. Their feedback wasn't actually that forthcoming, but I thought that's just one person's opinion. I've read this book to my son. I know that it's helped him. Maybe someone out there will believe in me. And that's when Hachette here in New Zealand came along and they were like, Yeah, we love it and we'll take it. And if I hadn't just gone out on a whim and gone, Oh, I'm just gonna give it a go. I'm just gonna try and see what they say because again, the worst they can say is no. They said yes. Amazing. I love stories like that.

[8:58]Zibby Owens: Well, this collection, They Bloom Because of You, which is coming out in March, is so beautiful. It's about all of the collective experiences that you go through as a mom, as you're wrestling with it in the moment, as you're contending with your mom and your friends, as I mentioned. And I was hoping just to read a couple short I mean, they're all fairly short poems, if that's okay. Yep? Yeah. I'd love that. Okay. So this is I'll hold your hand. There will always be days where the world feels tough, so let me remind you that you are enough. There will always be lows. There will always be highs. So hold my hand, and together, we'll fly. There will always be troubles, but tomorrow is new, so hold my hand and let me show you. There will always be darkness, but the sun will still rise, so hold my hand. Let your globe be your light. There will always be sadness, but there's love on the shore. Let it wash over you. Hold my hand a bit more. For each crack in the earth, a star shines above. For each heart that breaks, someone's falling in love. And for every beginning, there'll be someone you miss. You can hold my hand through it. I'm so glad you exist. There's pain and there's beauty. There's joy and there's fear. And in each given moment, I'm so happy you're here. So when it seems heavy and it's harder to stand, you can lean on me instead. I'll hold your hand.

[10:20]Jessica Urlichs: Oh, so beautiful. I don't know why I feel emotional hearing you read it. I yeah. I don't know why I'm getting all teary because yeah. I certainly don't feel that way when I read it, but it was really lovely to hear you read that. Oh,

[10:33]Zibby Owens: Do you remember when you were writing it, what was happening that day? Maybe it's just going back to that place. So

[10:43]Jessica Urlichs: often my poems are about my children or the motherhood experience, but that just stemmed from a difficult day with my son. I can't exactly remember what happened. It might have been a day after school. A lot of the time I also think to the future, and I think about, they say, Little people I can't remember the saying. Is it like the smaller years and there's small problems and then they get paraphrased that terribly, but sometimes I think to the teenage years and I think, Oh my goodness, those problems are gonna make these ones look easy. Mean, not necessarily, but I know in my teen years there were times that I would have loved to hear those words. And, yeah, I just think about that and I think about how no matter what happens with my kids, I want them to know that I will always hold their hand through it and I will always be that sounding board for them. So

[11:42]Zibby Owens: nice. You have some poems which are funny, like this one, just for some more comic relief, coffee is not enough. And you said, here's to the moms who feed to sleep, have forgotten to eat, pick things up with their feet. Here's to the mums who have a quick shave just of their ankles, no time in the day. Here's to the mums who quickly walk by their furry first baby whose tail wags to say hi. Here's to the mums who think they've done nothing. Being someone's constant is more than just something. Brain is scattered, mismatched like socks. On your worst day, you are still someone's rock. And here's to the moms who feel they may break with each little startle and every night wake. Tired and tangled, this is no easy feat. But just a reminder, please have something to eat.

[12:30]Jessica Urlichs: I love that one too. I need that reminder quite a lot.

[12:35]Zibby Owens: It's so hard to take care of ourselves. How are how old are all your kids now?

[12:41]Jessica Urlichs: Eight, seven, and three. And I feel like so often I'm just rushing around trying to get things done, trying to tick everything off my list that I'll be like, I need to go to the toilet, but that's not part of the plan right now. That it's not like breaking point of needing to go to the toilet. I'm like, oh gosh. This is so inconvenient. Playing with the food.

[13:01]Zibby Owens: Oh my gosh. Okay. This one is interesting. It's about your daughter and body image. This is called More Than a Body. My daughter looks in the mirror. She moves side to side. She's seen me do the same, surveying my pouch where she once grew. It's true. It takes hard work to look a certain way, but self acceptance is the hardest work of all, the long haul to rest in. I wanna tell her that her body is the least interesting thing about her, the way she loves, those caring hands, the way her heart shines more than her hair. You can make your body strong, but it won't move the mountains you'll be remembered for. And I wanna tell her as she looks in the mirror that happiness isn't shaped like a silhouette. The edges never meet. It flows and it's free. It flows and it's free. Oh, I wanna give that to my daughter today, my younger daughter. Well, actually, both of them. So great. Oh my gosh. Okay. If I read this, I'm probably gonna cry. And I won't read anymore, I promise. Then I'll just ask you more questions or chitchat about Actually, maybe I can't do this. It's you'll always be with me. I feel like we'll both be crying. Do you think we can take it? Possibly. Yeah. Okay. I'll try. And then one more short one, I promise. Okay. You'll always be with me. My son lets out a little sob because he doesn't want me to die. It's come out of nowhere and everywhere as the day turns into night. His lashes long, eyes like jewels shining with his tears. I wonder what I can possibly say to help calm his fears. I think of how hard today has been as we lay and I stroke his head. I can't count the saris on my hand, so I count the stars instead. I tell him I'm not going anywhere. I tell him I love him too. I don't tell him the thought of us being apart rips my sky in two. And somehow, I am filled with guilt to be loved this close to the bone. He sees all of me imperfectly and still reaches for me like home. And yet here we are in this uncertain world, more certain than ever before, that without each other, nothing makes sense like two feet without a floor. That is the weight of a love so big, the kind that aches within. You mourn the versions been and gone, miss moments you're still in. I want to tell him I'll always be here, though I know this isn't true. I don't say, you'll always walk with me, but I won't always walk with you. I tell him he has my heart always, even when it departs this place. I tell him in every universe, I will always see his face. There's a version of us in every life and all the versions you'll be, even when I'm at one with the wind, the shining stars, and the sea. I whisper in every life of mine, you will always be with me. Oh, I'm so sad.

[15:48]Jessica Urlichs: Oh, yeah. It's got the misty eyes going. That's for sure.

[15:53]Zibby Owens: I mean, that's like the hardest part of this whole thing is like if the world follows the natural order of things, even though all we want is to be there for them, we can't or we might not, and who knows? Isn't that just the hardest thing to bear? Exactly.

[16:11]Jessica Urlichs: These are some of the big questions that are coming out now as well with his age. He asked me that when he was seven. Just that concept of the fact that I'm not going to be here one day, and especially for, I mean even for me, thinking about that with my mum just breaks me, but when you're a young child, you just don't know any different as well. And the thought of your safe place one day not being there is just harrowing. And to try and explain that is very difficult, hence the poetry. But I actually, someone reached out to me, it would have been maybe, it might have been three years ago now, and unfortunately she had leukaemia. She sent me this email and she said, Look, I love your work, I have your book, I really I don't have a lot of time left and I would really love to leave a poem behind for my two year old son, so one day he can read it and just know how much I love him. And I read this email and obviously I was in tears, but I thought, Oh, I don't know if I can do this justice. I don't know if what I can send to you is gonna be good enough for your son. I was just so emotional and I said to her, Look, if the right words come to me, I will absolutely send this to you. Just can't Inspiration just has to strike. I can't just sit there and make myself right. Although I worded that differently. And I said, I promise I will send you something if the words come. And then I think it might have been two months later, the words just came. I was thinking about what I would want my children to know. Was thinking about the palm I would like to leave them. It wasn't this one. And I sent it to her. I emailed it back to her. Sorry, this is becoming a long story. And I never got a response, and I thought, oh, no. So I posted it on my social media to say this song. I didn't give any names, but I gave the backstory. And then her friend reached out to me who followed me and said sadly she'd passed away. Aw. So she never got to read it, which is really sad. However, she sent the poem to her husband, and her husband reached out to me. When the poem got published in Beautiful Chaos, which was the book before They Bloom, I sent him some signed copies to keep for his son as well. I mean, whole thing was quite serendipitous in the way that it came back. Managed to find the husband and get the words to her son eventually. Still gutted that she never got to read it. But that's probably the saddest poem I've ever written next to the one you just read. My gosh.

[18:59]Zibby Owens: Promise they're not all sad. I promise they don't really I know. Read the funny one about coffee.

[19:04]Jessica Urlichs: I read I read the coffee. Yeah. There's there's a funny one in there. Yeah. There's a funny one.

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[21:39]Zibby Owens: Okay. This is short and sweet and ends the entire collection. Not just. You are not just anything, not just a woman or just a friend, a wife, a partner, or just a mother. You are a universe made up of waves that brought life, stars that hold dreams, landscapes of home, rocks that will crumble but will always remain, the wind's gentle sway and strongest roar. You are someone's all, and all is not lost. You are a mother, but never just. Yes. It's like the rallying cry at the end. Yes. We're all like, you hear us. Here we go.

[22:15]Jessica Urlichs: That's a, yeah, a nice encouraging one to finish it off. How

[22:20]Zibby Owens: does it help you? Does it help you to, like, hear it again? Does it help you to write it in the day when the days are long and you're just wondering, like, do you put the pen or laptop or whatever aside and take a sigh and feel just a little bit better? Oh, immensely.

[22:35]Jessica Urlichs: Yeah. And I think we all have different ways of processing things. A lot of people like to talk it out or read. Reading poetry or just reading in general can help people process. But for me, it's always been writing. I just find it's just the best way for me to communicate as well, which is interesting. I send a lot of poems to my husband. I'm like, This is what I was trying to tell you. And he's like, Oh, that's nice, babe. I'm like, Cool. I was trying to say. But yeah, no, it really does help me. And I think what also really helps me is having other people read my work and come back and say, This really helped me. Or, Wow, I really understand I've had this shared experience. And so it's kind of like this reflective thing. Like, I don't feel alone. They don't feel alone. We're making these connections. If you can I just think if you can read your emotions through the lens of someone else, it's that instant connection and feeling of being less alone? And that's what I've tried to do with both of my collections, is I just want mums to open up any page

[23:46]Zibby Owens: and feel like they're being held by those words. And do your kids read these? Do you read them out loud? Not

[23:53]Jessica Urlichs: so much my poems in these books, although I have printed out a couple of ones, May She Always Know and May He Always Know, just palms for their bedrooms. But they're probably more into the children's books at this stage.

[24:10]Zibby Owens: Yeah. Of course. Oh my gosh. And you have a new children's book coming out this month, right? In The UK? Yes, it actually comes out tomorrow,

[24:17]Jessica Urlichs: You'll Always Be My Baby. It's actually a poem from Beautiful Chaos, which is the first one. I had so many people ask if I could turn it into a children's book, and so I've adapted it to make it slightly longer. So I'm really excited about that. Is that going to come out in The US as well? Yes, will, but the dates are kind of different. Think for The US it might be more like March,

[24:41]Zibby Owens: I think. So you're gonna have a busy March. Depending on the territory. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't it crazy to think, like I mean, it's this is gonna sound stupid, I guess, but, like, it doesn't matter where on the globe we are. Like, it doesn't matter. All these books try to slice and dice parenting in different places and how, oh, it's different to be a mom in France, and it's different to be a mom here, and blah blah blah. But at our core, it's all just about the love we have for the kids and what we can do. And it just I feel like poetry collections like yours hopefully will take all the divisiveness and just focus so much more on what binds us together as, like, loving creatures. So I feel like it couldn't be coming at a better time.

[25:25]Jessica Urlichs: Wow. Thank you. It's a universal language. Absolutely.

[25:29]Zibby Owens: What's the latest poem you've written? Did you write one today? No, I actually didn't write one today.

[25:35]Jessica Urlichs: I feel like my writing's become a bit more sparse lately. I've been so busy with the kids. I sort of thought when they they're still on school holidays actually, but I thought maybe when they hadn't started school, I'd just have all this time. And strangely, it hasn't really worked out like that. I feel busier than ever. Like there's just so much going on and then you've got your extracurricular. So for me, poetry is really as and when inspiration strikes and there can be a good chunk of time in between that. It freaks me out sometimes because I'm like, Oh no, has it gone? There's this thing that I do and love, has it gone? But for anyone listening that I guess is an aspiring author or writer, feel like if you've got something in you, it never leaves you. I think you're just waiting for the right thing to hit. For me, I can't write every day. I know there's advice out there that says write every day, even if you've got writer's block. I don't feel proud of anything unless it's something I really want to write about. So there is a bit of a waiting game in my process. And yeah, so it has been a wee while since I've written something new. That's okay. There's no pressure.

[26:41]Zibby Owens: You have enough coming out.

[26:43]Jessica Urlichs: Yeah, exactly. I also feel like I don't want to write about the same topics either. If I've covered something and I feel like I've written enough about something really sad and one aspect of motherhood, I really want to go there again. I'm like, No, I've touched on that topic enough. I've unpacked that enough. What else are we going to be talking about? What else is this journey going to throw at me? That's when I'll write about that. Well, I have older kids than you. My twins are 18, and I have a 12 and 11 year old. And

[27:13]Zibby Owens: yes, big kids, big problems. I know they say that and everything, but I think the hardest is when they're really little. And because you can you can talk to them like you would anybody. Their emotions might be slightly less rational than another grown up, but I find every age that they reach in a way, it's getting more and more enjoyable. So I hope that that gives you a little bit of comfort despite the messiest middle was right where you are. Like, when they're not old enough to make their own play dates and, you know, all of that stuff. And I know you have an autistic son as well, so it's not the same. But for the others, at least, I don't know, it does get easier. I guess I'm just trying to make you

[28:01]Jessica Urlichs: see the light. It does get easier. It really helps to hear that. Yeah. We're in a bit of a stage right now where my husband and I, we still feel like our conversations are so broken. And the only time we really get anything done or really get to finish a sentence is after the kids are dead. So we're still very much in that phase, but we do have a three year old as well and she's an absolute tornado in our lives. Yeah.

[28:27]Zibby Owens: Right, well hang in there, keep writing. You're helping the rest of us no matter what age kids we have, and you're doing you're doing an amazing job that you can be a published author and, like, best selling and doing all these things and managing everything on your plate. So I'm not trying to speak down to you. Thank but I hope you know that what you're doing is certainly not just. Alright.

[28:55]Jessica Urlichs: Thank you very much. And thank you so much for reading my poems. It was beautiful to hear you read them. Oh, thank you.

[29:01]Zibby Owens: Alright. Thanks, Jessica. Take care. Bye bye. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Sibby, formerly moms don't have time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zippy Owens, and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.