Photo by: Megan White

Junior Emmett Ferree published his first book Sept. 1 titled “Beeswax and Other Sticky Things.” The Amazon description says the book is “a critical examination of society and the difficult topics that nobody wants to talk about.”

“It still doesn’t feel real,” Ferree said about being a published author.

Ferree chose to self-publish his book through Amazon after struggling to find a publisher that would take him seriously. He said he’d been looking for a publisher since he was a sophomore in high school but found that publishers either thought he was prank calling them or considered him a “kid” and dismissed him quickly.

“You’re a junior in high school? Yeah, you’re too young,” Ferree said was a response he got from a publisher. After failing to get seven publishers to take him seriously, he took matters into his own hands.

Ferree found inspiration for his poetry from both his own experiences and the experiences of a variety of other people. “The basis of it goes on the topics of different social justice issues and kind of getting those voices of people who wouldn’t otherwise be in a position to speak out or have their opinions heard,” Ferree said.

When asked if any particular poem in his collection stood out among the rest for him, Ferree said “In Translation” holds a special significance to him. A line in the poem says, “I can’t find myself if I was never lost in the first place.” Ferree says it was hard for him to realize that he is okay with where he currently is in his transition as a transgender man and the transitional stages he’s experiencing as a college student. “In Translation” was a personal admission of this truth for him.

Ferree also shared a fun backstory relating to the title of the book. When talking to his mom one day, she realized she had stepped in something. After she commented on the substance on her shoe, Ferree replied, “Oh, that sucks. What a sticky situation.”

“The phrase of sticky situations just stuck in my head,” Ferree said. He realized that a lot of his poetry related to those sticky situations in life that people find themselves in. While he was putting his work together to be published, he said he saw a beeswax candle and thought, “Ah, beeswax is sticky,” and decided to put it together as a working title. The title ended up sticking for the rest of the production process.

In the production process, Ferree said he struggled most with writing the introduction. Ferree said he was used to writing on the fly, especially because most of his poems were written on his phone when he was hit with random bursts of inspiration. Sitting down and having to really calculate what he wanted to say to set up the reader for the rest of the book was a significant roadblock.

“I was trying to get across…how misleading a lot of current events in society are because we talk about the hot topics but only the ones that make those in power, either make them have a good image or make them money,” Ferree said. He added that there are a lot of topics that go undiscussed because of this issue.

“No one’s talking about things like male rape or conversion therapy or…anything revolving around gender-based violence,” Ferree said.

The intention of the introduction was to address that as a serious problem and lead into how it will be approached in the book. The introduction also clarified that the poems were “a collection of my [Ferree’s] thoughts and commentary on it.” Ferree said that some of his work addresses issues he did not directly experience but rather topics he read about, researched or heard about through a “whisper down the lane” style.

“I think if anyone would take anything away from this it would be that there’s always a way to have your ideas heard, even if you don’t have direct access to someone who will listen,” Ferree said. “Language is a powerful tool, and if it’s reiterated from one person to the next, it has a lot of power.”

The book is available for purchase on amazon.com for $8.75.