Ribbons (poetry collection)

Ribbons is a short collection of poetry by Matthew Little. It is his second book released, and first to be released online for free. Poems from Ribbons are also included in the upcoming collection Breaking Through, which is currently being worked on.

About

Little began writing the collection in October 2013 after publishing his debut collection Hell in a Basket in August 2013 while he lived with his family in an apartment in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. It was continued after moving to Southbury, Connecticut to be with his ex-boyfriend, but after returning to Massachusetts they broke up, and it was there the collection was continued until finalized.

Title and cover art

When the collection was started Little had the title "The Public Approach" in mind, as sort of a gesture to bring his anxiety out in the open and to match the theme of anxiety he originally wanted for the whole book. He also planned on writing a poem with that title but the inspiration for it never came. The title was then changed to "Nothing Like a Leo", a poem that appears in the collection, but it was then changed again to "Ribbons", a long and extremely personal poem that appears as well. Explaining his reason for the new title, Little wrote on Facebook, "The collection [...] it's kept mostly in the order of how it was written. Each "ribbon" is something confessed from me, I feel like calling it that would make way more sense."

Before Ribbons was completed, Little had no idea what he wanted for the cover. In September 2013 he uploaded a picture of a set of dead flowers he had taken in his mother's room, writing that he took another photo of the same flowers that he was considering to be the cover for the book, but the idea soon faded.

The official cover for the book was created on the night of its release, made on the spot using Microsoft Paint. He created a simple cover; the title of the book and his name appear in white text over a blood red background.

Themes and style

The themes of the poetry don't stray too far from Hell in a Basket, Little continues to write about his anxiety, dealing with an alcoholic parent (and addiction in other forms), but also contributes poetry coming from his softer side, such as love, cute things he likes either while in love or just thinking about love, paranoia about getting sick, etc.

Unlike Hell in a Basket, which was styled to progress with each poem, Ribbons follows no set theme in content; Little decided for the most part to keep the collection in order of which each poem was written as a way to show his writing skills maturing both for the reader and himself (with a few exceptions). It's tagline is "A random assortment of poetry".

Little also still follows his traditional confessional style. As he did with his previous work, Ribbons consists of poems that are in ways autobiographical. However, his poems differ in style because his new work features a much more metaphorical tone; his older poems severely lacked metaphor and structure. For example, his poem A Father to my Mother began:

At birth I was yellow

The nurses called me

The Neon Crayon

And we were both sick for a year

I was raised in an apartment,

Raised in tattoo parties

Hearing those needles buzz

While you all were buzzed

As I probably was

When you’d give me

Bud in my sippy-cup

So I could sleep and not wake up

At the time of its inception Little had little grasp of the concept of how to structure a poem, instead just wanting to convey a story and not wanting to gloss it over with meaningless images and disregarded stanzas a good amount of the time. But in his newer poem "Ribbons", he exhibits personal growth in how he crafts his work:

I had ribbons around the sac of my heart,

They grew and tied me down in Fall River.

I laid connected for two days, a monitor followed me

Around the wing; I heard pings, eerie electronic bells

From machines that tied other people down.

Look at me there in the hospital bed in a hospital dress,

I'd might as well been home suffering; what mattered?

What's health compared to a two-year ache?

My lids would have drooped half down anyway

And I would have slept just as much, forget the drugs.

Poems

18 poems have been written for Ribbons. The confirmed poems that appear in the collection are:

1. Guttural Sounds
2. Sometimes
3. Nothing Like a Leo
4. Someone's Mother
5. A Hangover
6. Left or Right
7. I Hope I Don't
8. Ms. Hash's Children
9. False Hope
10. Rachelle
11. Back Where I Grew Up
12. About Being Out
13. Ribbons
14. Ship Wrecked
15. A Nail-Biter's Confession
16. On The Roundabout of your Stomach
17. Your eyes
18. You

Little originally intended to begin the collection with a poem called "A Writer's Words", but decided against it after his ex-boyfriend thought negatively about it. The poem can be read on Tumblr.

Release

On Facebook, Little wrote on August 29th, 2014 that the collection up to that point needed editing as he was "not as happy" with the material as he hoped to be. He also said he wanted to write "at least 15 more poems" before he can consider publishing it.

However, on October 17, 2014, Little posted on Facebook that Ribbons was completed and released on Wattpad, a website used by writers to post their material for people to read and comment. He wrote about its release, "It's been sitting for a year, and it has accumulated a number of poems, and I think as it is there's no other word I could put in to extend it. It's pretty much a chapter of my life that needs to be closed, and today, October 17, 2014, "Ribbons" is finally available after a year of love, heartache, stress, anxiety, stupidity, emotion, and numerous title changes." He also said that with its release he hopes to focus more on his other projects, which includes more poetry and his novel writing.