Megan Stewart
After pouring his emotions and life experiences into over 2,000 poems in three years, 16-year-old Ivan Bultman of Sweet Home High School is now a first-time author.
Bultman, who has “loved story-telling” since second grade, self-published his poetry book “Moments I Live” on July 17. Now about to begin his junior year in high school, he started writing the book as an eighth-grader and finished the manuscript only three days before its release. He said “Moments I Live” is “a journey through life’s best and worst moments” and was designed to be read from beginning to end, “unlike most poetry books.”
When he began “Moments I Live,” Bultman “was feeling very lost and heartbroken and hurt by life itself” he said, but over time, he began to “mend,” a slow transformation expressed in his writing.
The collection of poems is “really about healing throughout it, and that’s what I want people to see – that not everything is just black,” said Bultman, adding that “you can go through all the stages, from color to black and back to color again,” because “that’s just how life is.”
Life “truly isn’t bad as long as you keep moving forward,” he said.
Despite a few of his adult readers describing the book as “really enjoyable,” Bultman’s target audience is teenagers because “I am where they are,” he said. The content “feels a lot more powerful” to a “young adult.”
The idea for creating a book formed after a close friend of Bultman’s criticized his handwriting when he showed her a poem he’d written. After he went home, he thought to himself, “If you don’t like my handwriting, what other things don’t they like about me?”
As their friendship ended, Bultman “wrote pages and pages” about the experience, he said. The first poem of Chapter One in the book focuses on that subject.
“From there, it became this long book.”
He wrote his poems anywhere he could – his computer, his typewriter, a cheap notebook from Fred Meyer, and even on schoolwork, he said.
“If I was writing in class, like if we were taking time and I’d get an idea, I’d write it on the back because, you know, sometimes my ideas, like, go away.”.
“I’m sure my teachers have seen some of my work. They’re probably all really confused.”
At one point, he almost quit writing the book, but due to praise he received from his English teacher about a poem he wrote for a class assignment, he built up enough confidence to continue.
Early on in the writing process, Bultman pitched his book to several different publishing companies, some of whom expressed interest in “Moments I Live.”
“I think one of the main things that had people intrigued and interested in what I was doing was I was being authentic,” he said. “I was being real about what I was doing, what I was trying to portray.”
He also said the industry is seeking books with “more depth and more feeling” and content that’s “able to get people to feel the same way” as the author.
However, because of creative and directional differences, Bultman decided to self-publish instead. His main concern was the art, primarily the cover. The publishing companies wanted to design it for him, but he felt it was important “to have control over” it.
“We grow up in a society where everyone sort of looks at things [at] face value and what they [things] look like, so I wanted it [the cover] to portray what the meaning behind it [the book] is.”
“I wanted the cover to reflect a certain feeling. I didn’t want people to look at it and sort of feel something that I didn’t want them to feel.”
One publishing company wanted to put a mixtape on the cover – a reference to an individual poem in the book. Instead, Bultman chose an eye to be the first thing people saw.
“I wanted people to really understand that this is what I see, this is from my perspective. I feel like the eye is really what tells that and these are all the things I am seeing, I have gone through.”
“Moments I Live” is structured into titled chapters, each with its own “singular” theme. Every chapter contains between three to 25 poems, with an average of 10.
Poems had to fit three criteria to be included: Bultman had to like it, it had to fit a chapter’s theme, and it had to flow with the rest of the poems.
Out of his initial collection of over 2,000, he ended up choosing only about 509 poems to fill up his book, all of which “felt right.”
His favorite is the “The One-Winged Canary,” a three-page piece he wrote after moving to Sweet Home from Albany to live with his grandmother, Leona McCann, after eighth grade.
It is his response to being removed from a situation in which he felt bullied, and experienced what he described as mental abuse.
“I think it’s my favorite passage … because I felt free,” Bultman said.
“I felt free because I was away from all that.”
Due to being out of school, Bultman hasn’t reached out to many of his classmates about his new book, but a librarian at the high school and a few of his English teachers have purchased copies, he said.
Reception from people who have read it has been positive, he said.
Some of his peers told him “it was very important to read it during this time (the pandemic) because it is a journey of healing.”
He said no one has had anything “bad to say about it, which I’m really surprised by, but I am more my own worst critic.”
Bultman said he chose July 17 as the book’s release date because it’s the anniversary of his other grandmother’s passing.
“I kind of wanted to dedicate it to her. I am sure that she is happy for me.”
Maria Bultman, his grandmother, was always his biggest fan and “supported everything I’ve ever done since day one.”
“She’s definitely been someone I look up to,” Ivan Bultman said. “Knowing that there are people out there that actually care-it’s really great, it gives you hope.”
In some ways, Maria’s outlook on his life may have influenced the overarching theme of his book.
“From a young age, she told me to … think outside the box and believe that there is a way out, that there is hope no matter where you go, which path you take.”
When writing his book, Bultman said he “wanted to be able to show somebody that not everything is sad.”
“People are obviously going to feel all these emotions and I want them to know it gets better.”
Even now, Bultman is adding more poems to the original Google doc.
“They’re still moments I live,” he said, adding that he may release an anniversary edition that is even longer in the future.
In addition to publishing a poetry book this summer, Bultman also released his first spoken word album, “Primary Colors,” on June 30.
So what’s next?
Bultman plans to “actually dive into writing music” and release an album with a partner book. Bultman intends to write the album first and then the book, which will be “very similar” to “Moments I Live” in that it will be “very chapter-oriented.”
“Each song on the album will be a different chapter, and that chapter will have different writing styles.”
Bultman said he’s worked on his voice “to where I’m comfortable with it” and plans “to dive a little deeper and actually do harmonies and instrumentals.” He will rely on the skills he developed in band class and from reading and writing music.
“I do have some experience, but you can only continue to learn.”
Despite enjoying the arts as a “hobby,” Bultman doesn’t have any plans at the moment to turn professional when he gets older.
“I think that’s what makes the best work, is not focusing on it like 24/7,” he said.
Instead, he said, he will probably pursue physical therapy and attend college in either Arizona or Massachusetts.
“I think (I became interested in physical therapy) because my mom has always been in the healthcare field and just seeing her and how she’s helping people was really inspiring,” said Bultman. “But I don’t like blood and I don’t like throw-up, so I didn’t think that was going to work, and so I was like, ‘physical therapy.'”
He views it as a way to help “people heal their bodies.”
Bultman said he’s also considering working as a school therapist.
“It’d be really fun to do just because I’ve been a teenager and I know how they feel,” he said, “and I’m sure I’ll know how they feel in 25 years.”
As for how other young adults could follow in his footsteps, Bultman said, “don’t think that there’s just one lane because you can go in any direction you want.”
“Moments I Live” is available for purchase on Amazon.com or on his website at Bultmanshop.com. He hopes to make it available at Target in the future, as well. Primary Colors is accessible on Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube under the name “Bultman.”