In fact, I have been very busy this year, both writing new poems and rewriting a completed novel which I hope to get into print next year if I can persuade an agent to run with it. On top of that I have been running a poetry group (the Original Poets of Clapham, London) and been very busy promoting my first poetry collection, A Limited Season.
So where has all the poetry gone? It is true there is less of it. But if last year's frenetic production rate did anything, it allowed my poetry, through experimentation and practice, to find my poetic voice, something that would otherwise have taken far longer. And now I am able to write poems that say much more efficiently what I want to say, and say it in a voice that those closest to me would recognize at once as mine. The result is a steady flow of poems of, I think, a good and improving quality. I can take my time with them because I am confident they will mature slowly into what I want. And I am finding that the editors of literary journals recognize in the latest poems something distinctive - that is, they are accepting them much more readily than before.
Which is why I am posting far fewer on the Slush Poetry site: quite simply, I want to keep my poems under wraps so that they are all the more attractive to journals and, in time, to publishers. So I apologize for sharing less, but here's what I will do: I will share all published poems once the publication they are in has been sent out. Fewer poems, but all the best ones.
In the meantime, here is a small sample of my latest poem:
In snow
Much is explained
by the propensity of men
to sign their names
in snow
All that lay
en lettres anglaises
the dexterity of fletchers
and other trades
or the pleasures
men know...
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