My Heartshell, by Jenny Morelli

Poetry, chapbook, 48 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

After the pain comes the healing and the bridge is no more than a series of stepping-stone words on a page. My Heartshell is a collection of shards from my chipped and fractured childhood glued together into a mosaic like stained glass. Each poem is a remnant of memory sewn into a patchwork quilt, a white phantom like my name full of universal truths and traumas that I hope can help provide validation and healing to my readers through the power of words.

These poems address themes of childhood, identity, and personal growth. They capture the essence of what growing up was for me, including my search for identity and my journey toward self-acceptance, reflecting themes of love, loss, and the quest for belonging.

Jenny Morelli is a high school English teacher who lives in New Jersey with her husband and cats. She is often inspired and encouraged by her students to write about universally traumatic personal experiences, since they help her remember what it was like to be their age, figuring out how to cope with the roller coaster of emotions from parental pressure to peer pressure to suicide ideation, and hopes her words will make a difference.

She’s written tons of poetry and memoirs as well as three young adult novels, all about self-discovery, self-acceptance, surviving a toxic home, and defying expectations. She’s published in several print and online literary magazines including  Spillwords, Red Rose Thorns, and Scars tv, and is thrilled and honored to have this be her third poetry chapbook with Bottlecap Press.