I’ve been using a full page
diary to write a poem a day, and it worked until last month. I’ve fallen
off the wagon and lost my rhythm, though I’ve got to admit that a
poem a day for all that time is pretty damn good so I’m not
complaining or berating myself…and I’m very happy with the work that’s already
tucked away. A poem a day doesn’t mean that they’re in any way
finished: they are absolute first draft with no crossings out – no real pause
for thought, just pushed out like a baby in the last phase of labour, then left
to live. Some are now being worked on for this Kindle project, some earlier creations are finished and in the
process of being polished. There are a few political poems written a few years
ago that have languished in a lonely file that seem to fit with the voice of
this collection.
And here I am at 2am, musing
on poetry when I should be trying to sleep. I hate wasting time sleeping and
yet I like waking in that snuggling position, testing my eyes to see if I’m
really awake or if I can slip off for another hour. My character is an enigma
even to me. When I lie down to sleep I know my mind will saunter off looking
for the title of that little poem about the cream jug; it just won’t come, and
that’s unusual for me – though I do often change titles further down the line
when I’m in a tinkering phase. But I want it to open this collection so I’d
better think on. Yes, I’m going to do that now.
Coming back to these notes
and have mashed that little ‘jug’ poem into something else – yes, this is one
of my habits; I just love mixing and matching and shoving bits of work together
to create happy accidents and new wild work. All the poetry files have been
raided so now I have to finish and polish and choose the finalists. Meanwhile, I’ve
been reading over at Smashwords,
investigating their instructions for publishing and they’re much more detailed
than Kindle. The poems aren’t ready
yet so there is plenty of time to study and build the document into the right
format for publishing. So, it’s all just rolling right along and I’ll get there
in the end.
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