Upon the release of Country star, Kelsea Ballerini’s new poetry collection, Feel Your Way Through, actress Reese Witherspoon, sat down with the 28-year-old as the two talked their way through the new book.
Kelsea’s new collection came to life during her time quarantined in 2020. As she turned to poetry to express herself during a scary and unpredictable time. Turns out the “Peter Pan” singer had a lot more to say than she initially realized.
“I detached the music from the writing and I kept writing, because that’s how I process life,” Kelsea shared of how the project came to be. “I had 10,000 words a few months later and I was like, ‘I think this is a book!’”
The Knoxville, TN native credits poetry for allowing her to process her “big feelings” and thoughts in a healthy way, something she has struggled with in the past as a self-proclaimed “people-pleaser.”
“I’m an only child, I’m a Virgo, I’m a Nine on the Enneagram, I’m everything where I’m like, ‘Are you good? Because I’ll move heaven and earth to make sure you’re good!’” She shared. “That became a huge underlying piece to this book that I didn’t really know until I read it back.”
Another underlying theme of the book is self-acceptance, a topic Kelsea feels passionate about sharing with the young women that look up to her.
“I remember, especially when I was a pre-teen, how impressionable I was by pop culture… it was so much more than just the music,” Kelsea shared.” “I used to think being a role model meant being squeaky clean, and being seemingly perfect and having it all together.” Now, she focuses on telling the truth and being there for those who are facing similar struggles she did.
“This is a hard world,” she expressed. “When we are scrolling [social media], we are not looking at pictures of people that are real. This is filtered, you shouldn’t compare yourself to this.”
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The above is a voice she wished she had when she was in school as she constantly compared herself to others and struggled with an eating disorder after a boy at school teased her for having skinny legs and a big belly. It all comes to the surface in her poem, Kangaroo.
“What the world told me and what it continues to / that women are not enough unless we are damn near see through / That our worth lies in the gap between our thighs / or the structure of our face / or the umber called our size.”
Kelsea reflected, “I think for me, I’ve had to redefine. I don’t want to be skinny, I want to be healthy. I want to nourish myself and that doesn’t just mean my body, it means my mind, it means my soul it means my creativity.”
Kelsea’s poetry collection, Feel Your Way Through, is available for purchase now.
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