Here's an old poem, see link below, taken from a collection called Fingal which I wrote over ten years ago now. It remains unpublished, and that is fine by me. Its not one of my best, there are some good poems in it, I think. But, overall, the collection does not work as a whole. For example, there is no coherent, unifying theme throughout the book. Rather, it is a mixture of poems of very differing styles, thrown together ad-hoc. As I said, some of them, like the one published below, work fine on their own but the text taken in its entirety is not one of my best.
I have been looking back at them. My books. I have fifteen in my file now. There are still five or six of my books which remain unpublished. The latest Tripping on the Real is among one of my best efforts, I think. I have it in chapbook format as well as the full collection. It took me 3 months to write. From the 15th March up until the last days of May really. So, a little under two months. 64 pages in total. That is relatively short for me, most of my collections hit around 74 or so pages. But this one is different.
I am very pleased with it. Some of the poems have already appeared in Pendemic, The Ragged Lion, Live Encounters, and of course Les Cosaques des Frontieres. But there are still a few which I am awaiting news from. Most are sonnets. One is in a competion and I've entered the chapbook too in another competition. So, we'll see what happens to them.
I have a good feeling about me now. So much work has been done. The Dark Pool, The Enemy - Transversions from Charles Baudelaire, and Dublin Gothic this first trilogy, all published, was the first step in compiling the 'edifice'. I call it my Dublin Trilogy. Some day, who knows, perhaps a publisher with a bit of money, and sense, will publish it in one big volume. It almost happened in 20017, but it was not to be.
Its a miracle that these three books were published in their present forms at all! Even if two of them are out of print now. Walter has shut down mgv2>publishing after so many years involved in independent publishing. I can see why. He published so many authors. I helped introduce a lot to him also, coming from Ireland of course. That was nice to be able to do, make connections. I acted as a bridge, as it were. Its terrible in the beginning, to find publishers who are willing to publish you. I remember very well, its not that long ago when I was struggling myself. Of course, its never over. But, with so much work out now, I feel at last that I can relax a bit. There's something about this last work that has brought about a great feeling of well being.
Perhaps its the fact that the book is a mixture of so many different aspects of poetry that I am interested in, so it kind of shows the full palette of my interests and dare I say it skill! Translations... there are some from Yan Kouton and Christophe Bregaint, some of which I have already published here and some new ones. So, this is part of my engagement with contemporary French poetry. Then there are some transversions from Baudelaire and Rimbaud, showing my deep appreciation and love of 19th century French literature. So, the French theme is very strong. I always told Yan and Christophe that I would work on a book with them, this is perhaps just the beginning of it.
Then there are some sonnet cycles, prose poems in both English and French...yes, it is a very French collection. Covid 19 is the theme. So I got back to the Gothic links, Baudelaire and Rimbaud work very well there, I think. Anyway, it is done. I'm back working on the novel now...Here's that link I promised from The Blue Nib. It's my first time having work published by them, so that is good. I see that the poem has been shared quite a bit too. That doesn't surprise me, its a bit of a crowd pleaser. Still, no harm in that.
No comments:
Post a Comment