Friday, September 10, 2010

HIJACKED BY POETRY

Loads of time lately devoted to organising and publicising and sending out invites for the book-launch in Drogheda of my new poetry collection from Lapwing Publications of Belfast - probably the only poetry publisher around would take on my long poems (some here up to 5 and 7 pages). 

It's called GREYBELL WOOD AND BEYOND

55 pages of quirky and idiosyncratic stuff offering snapshots and mini-dramas from my life experiences and observations and my first solo run at poetry. I now have copies - looks good. On the cover is the black-and-white photo taken by my dad long years ago of my mum, sister and me sitting on a fallen tree in a bluebell wood. 

It's what prompted the title poem "Greybell Wood", which started as a fairly short nostalgia piece but grew over successive revises into a study of the way memory works and the power of photographs to trigger emotions and other cogitations. Strange where the creative process takes you. 

The same could be said of other poems including "Reunion" which follows my year at college through their lives and careers over 50 years - now there's ambitious for you! 

The book-launch is on 21st September followed by one in Dublin on October 5th. Otherwise, nail-biting time waiting to hear if I'm on a panel at Bouchercon 2010, the big crime fiction convention in San Francisco I'm going to in October.