This is a group giveaway with Hobo Mama, Living Peacefully With Children, Authentic Parenting, Up, Down & Natural, Code Name: Mama, Positive Parenting Connection, and I Thought I Knew Mama. I'm cross-posting it here on Hobo Mama Reviews as well. Please enter at one site only. Find the section marked "Win it!" for the mandatory entry and optional bonus entries.

In honor of April's National Poetry Month, I am so pleased to offer a giveaway of SEVEN copies of my poetry book, Poetry of a Hobo Mama: The First Three Years. Each copy retails for $11.99, so the combined value of this giveaway is $72!

Poetry of a Hobo Mama is a collection of poems inspired by the initial three years of parenting my firstborn son, Mikko.

About the book

I sling my baby like a bindle on my back,
tramping along the tracks
countless feet have worn before.

Poetry of a Hobo Mama contains three years' worth of parenting poetry, written from the time my husband, Sam, and I were preparing for Mikko, through watching him grow to three years old. I've intentionally included poems that speak of our natural parenting journey — breastfeeding, the family bed, elimination communication, and natural birth among them.

The book is a combination of free verse and more traditional poetry forms, and the topics and tone run through all the variations I felt when writing them: the grief of miscarriage, the anticipation of trying to conceive, the upheaval of the newborn months, the joy of parenting, and the balance of motherhood with personal passion.

Until you move away

Pillow hog and space eater,
chubby legs kicking my thighs.
Starfish hands pushing my chest
and unh unh unh in the darkness
until I roll over and let you feed.
Dream interrupter, devourer of sleep,
you take while I wait
until you move away.

Lap hog and attention seeker,
sturdy body invading my space.
Starfish hand pulling my chin
to meet your gray-green eyes,
your chatter about octopi.
Poem interrupter, devourer of time,
you talk while I wait
until you move away.

Imagining a night with full sleep,
imagining a day with concentration,
uninterrupted, unrelenting,
unleavened.
Dreading the day
you move away.

The reviews

Here are excerpts from the reviews from the participating bloggers. I'll post the link to each once it goes live in the next couple days so you can read them in full.

I'm so touched by these reviews, and I hope you'll visit the sites of these bloggers. You can also read some sample poems there. As you enter the giveaway, you'll have a chance to connect with them further: Bonus entries include subscribing to their feeds and following them on Facebook and Twitter.

From Authentic Parenting:

Her book guides us from miscarriage, onto birth and into parenting, with the full scale of emotions it brings. And emotional it is, her poetry. I was often brought to tears, only to suppress a giggle at the next page. From pumping, to PPD, to renewed fertility, Lauren shuns no topic.

This is poetry straight from the heart, with all the flaws and failure, all the successes and joys parenting brings. Sometimes raw and crude, other times gentle and loving, but always recognizable.

From Up, Down & Natural:

For me, the beauty of poetry is for an author to be able to take a basic human emotion that countless people before have felt, and give that emotion life.  It is an interesting experience to be reading truly beautiful poetry and have it feel as if the author was with you during a specific moment in life, and writes for you, as if they have had a glimpse in to your heart, in to your soul, and in to the quiet feelings and thoughts that lurk only in your own heart and mind.  To see your exact thoughts and feelings poured out on to a paper, and given new beauty, meaning and character is truly a beautiful gift. Lauren Of Hobo Mama has given me such a gift through her incredibly powerful, moving and poignant writing.  As I read "End Of Bleeding", a poem on miscarriage, I truly felt as if Lauren had been there with me through the raw emotions that I felt, and had been the voice to release in to the world the thousands of feelings and emotions that coursed through my body during those times in my life.  

How Lauren is able to purely encapsulate the emotions of the heart and give that softness and warmth of reassurance, I have no idea.  I don't question it, as I am wrapped up in the comfort of her poetry and writing.  I simply allow myself to be taken on the beautiful journey with her, and be taken in to her words as she somehow seems to know my own journey as well.

…

I most certainly will be including this book in future Baby Shower gift baskets, and very much look forward to more writing by the wonderful, and always inspiring Lauren Wayne.

From Living Peacefully With Children:

Lauren Wayne's Poetry of a Hobo Mama is motherhood as art, speaking to our very souls, asking us to cry from sadness and happiness, reminding us that there is no other greater purpose while at the same time allowing us our own small place in something much bigger.  It is raw and honest, exposing our fears and hopes, calling us to grow rather than callous and stunt ourselves, just as we nurture that in our children.

From Code Name: Mama:

I never understood that becoming a mother would  connect me to the heartache and joys and wisdom and love - all of the beautiful and ugly things that go along with motherhood and every other woman who has carried a child in her womb or her heart. I never understood that reading about another woman's pregnancy loss could touch me so deeply. That someone's thoughts about the first time her son would have a broken heart would make me ponder my own future reactions so fervently. Poetry never tugged at my heart strings quite so profoundly . . . until I became a mother.

…

I wasn't quite prepared for the laughs, tears, and head nods that I'd be doing as I devoured Lauren's poetry. Sometimes I found my body swaying softly to the rhythmic lyrics she often composes. Or brought up short by twisty endings. Or zinged by a clever turn of phrase that always made me think, I want to write like that!

From Positive Parenting Connection:

In her book Lauren explores everyday parenting milestones, trials and tribulations. From conception, pregnancy, misscariage, birth, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, babywearing and more, motherhood is explored with passionate, witty, raw, and intense words that melt beautifully together into poetry.

Lauren is inspiring, a passionate mother and her honesty and reflection on motherhood from poem to poem shows a journey of transformation, inner strength, doubt and frustration, empowerment and self-reflection that every mother can relate to.

From I Thought I Knew Mama:

Lauren's poems cover the full gamut of the early parenting journey from 

miscarriage (Why were we led all that way, and never to see your face?)
to
conception (Charting, temping, noting fluids and marking good days on each month’s calendar.)
to 
pregnancy (Kicking me under my heart for all those months. Just under my heart.)
to
the first taste of mother's intuition (People told me when you were due, as if you were a term paper and to turn in late would earn a failing grade. We ignored them, didn't we?)
to 
birth (Light sped into your eyes, and electricity arced in connection between us, as I defied gravity and orbited you.)
to 
the mourning of the life you left behind (I have wanted people to know there is more than joy in being a mother, that there is frustration and regret, strain on a marriage, lack of sleep, lack of time, lack of peace.)

Lauren also writes about postpartum depression, breastfeeding, pumping, babywearing, her love for her husband, and the magic of the smallest moments of parenting that seem to make the most lasting impressions upon us.

Some of Lauren's words will haunt you as you recognize the thoughts you may have been afraid to speak out loud, and some will remind you of the incredible universality of the mothering experience. No matter which end of the spectrum her poems touch, and regardless of what you have experienced yourself, I have no doubt that Poetry of a Hobo Mama: The First Three Years will provide you with a real and refreshing take on motherhood. I look forward to revisiting these poems and to seeing how Lauren captures the continuation of her parenting journey.

About the author

In case it hasn't become apparent, I live and write in the Pacific Northwestern USA, with my husband, Sam, and our two sweet boys: four-year-old Mikko (almost five, he would tell you!) and ten-month-old baby Alrik (who persistently makes the concerned face you see in the picture at right). I have been writing and publishing poetry for twenty-five years, but parenting has added even more inspiration. Poetry allows me to be honest about my emotional journey and to show an image, pin down a feeling, in a way that other writing does not.

Mikko and I grace the book's cover — that's me breastfeeding Mikko in public on a Seattle beach when Mikko was just a few months old.

BUY IT!

You can purchase your own copy of Poetry of a Hobo Mama at Amazon and CreateSpace. It's available internationally and on Kindle through Amazon. The list price is $11.99 for the paperback and $9.99 for the ebook.

Just for our readers, I'm offering a 20% discount on all book orders through CreateSpace only. (Amazon unfortunately won't allow coupon codes.) Enter code SAP84AYJ during the ordering process.

WIN IT!

For your own chance to win one of seven copies of Poetry of a Hobo Mama, enter by leaving a comment and using the Rafflecopter system below.

Contest is open WORLDWIDE.

MANDATORY ENTRY: Share one of your favorite parenting moments.

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BONUS ENTRIES:
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Contest closes April 30 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.