brief thoughts on publication of north
I'm extremely grateful to Alec Newman and his Knives, forks and spoons press for believing that the poems in my chapbook north are worth publishing. Without wishing to dissuade you from buying it I thought I'd share a few initial thoughts about the publication.
A curious thing about north now being available is that while I'm more or less happy with parts of most of the poems I'm not sure that it actually hangs together as a collection. Related to this although I'm not entirely convinced by my (still unfinished) sequence manchester I feel that it does at least some of the things the poem north does a little better. However two aspects of the chapbook interest me.
One is the relationship between some of the imagery in black town, and the minimal descriptions in oranges and greys, to the same ideas tried out at greater length in north. Which as I've said were then expanded further through manchester. So there is a kind of continuity and development. That said I'm not certain it's quite the development I want to see.
The other aspect that interests me is how different final poem rustle seems from the rest of the poems. It was written relatively quickly, using a different approach than usual, subject to pretty vigorous editing, and I feel is a lot more successful in heading towards where I would like my poetry to be. That is with a reduced emphasis on description and objects, a more fractured surface, and the presence of thoughts and 'selves' that are not mine. It's disappointing that so far I haven't been able to match it.
Overall though I'm glad that the collection is out there and actual disinterested (or even interested) readers have a chance to make what they will of the poems. And as the brief notes here suggest, collecting poems in one place and having to live with them through the process of preparing the book, forces one to look at them in a much more focussed and critical way. This can only be a good thing, and I hope will help in my development as a writer.
A curious thing about north now being available is that while I'm more or less happy with parts of most of the poems I'm not sure that it actually hangs together as a collection. Related to this although I'm not entirely convinced by my (still unfinished) sequence manchester I feel that it does at least some of the things the poem north does a little better. However two aspects of the chapbook interest me.
One is the relationship between some of the imagery in black town, and the minimal descriptions in oranges and greys, to the same ideas tried out at greater length in north. Which as I've said were then expanded further through manchester. So there is a kind of continuity and development. That said I'm not certain it's quite the development I want to see.
The other aspect that interests me is how different final poem rustle seems from the rest of the poems. It was written relatively quickly, using a different approach than usual, subject to pretty vigorous editing, and I feel is a lot more successful in heading towards where I would like my poetry to be. That is with a reduced emphasis on description and objects, a more fractured surface, and the presence of thoughts and 'selves' that are not mine. It's disappointing that so far I haven't been able to match it.
Overall though I'm glad that the collection is out there and actual disinterested (or even interested) readers have a chance to make what they will of the poems. And as the brief notes here suggest, collecting poems in one place and having to live with them through the process of preparing the book, forces one to look at them in a much more focussed and critical way. This can only be a good thing, and I hope will help in my development as a writer.
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