A poetry book seems to take about four years to create….well that’s how long it takes me. First there’s the years of creating poems. Then the leap of faith when one compiles a manuscript and sends it off. I learnt this year what a thrill that acceptance email was. Though I had published two books previously, had had several shortlisted in international competitions and had workshopped most of the poems with critical peers, I think we are always seeing the flaws.
But acceptance came and after the months of editing and re-editing, the next email has come. The manuscript is ‘in press’.
And now I am living in that brief interlude when what’s done is done but the work of putting it before the world has not quite begun.
