How Ray Heisler Poetry Started...

Hey everyone,

Welcome back to Ray Heisler Poetry's Blog. I wanted to start this blog off with how Ray Heisler Poetry came to life. My dad came to me a month before he died and asked me to pick up the pen again. At first I said, "yeah... I'm going to pass". But he didn't stop begging me, stating, "Ray, you HAVE to do it." After he died, I had a dream of my dad and I in a club where he got shot, and right before he died in the dream, he demanded of me: "Open your freaking business!"

Another story I wanted to tell that drove me to start my business, Ray Heisler Poetry, is about my biological mom. My biological mom is a poet, so it runs in my family-- but I am the only one that did something with my talent. It really took my dad saying that I needed to start my business, which is the real impetus for me doing all of this.

My new book is called "Ten Year Prisoner", because the origin story behind the poem is basically because I had to stay in a hospital bed due to my physical health. I had a caregiver that would keep me hostage in this bed, which took a huge toll on me. At the same time, my wife Karla also had a lot of medical issues, which took precedent over everything. This business is important to our livelihood. I mentally felt like a prisoner of my own health, because I couldn't go out, I couldn't be around friends, and I had depression (even though I didn't know it at the time). It is an up and down process dealing with my depression, some days are better some are not. But this business is giving me a drive and a goal that is helping me deal with that depression. I will no longer be a ten-year prisoner. I am uncaging myself from these things that hold me down through Ray Heisler Poetry--and achieving the goals that my dad and mom have innately built in me.