end game

There always seems to be a moment when a poetry book or manuscript becomes real after what may have been months of years of hanging sort of randomly as a series of loose poems in a word doc file.  When you begin to see how they come together and that they are, in fact, a real thing with heft, weight, and texture rather than research notes and plans and snippets. For me this usually happens at the point where I begin to think about layout. When I have gone over the poems and declared them finished, as well as arranged them in the desired sections, order, and configurations. This often also happens when I finally print out a final version on the printer to go over for one final scan before layout, although lately I am more apt to skip this step to save ink that could be better used for chaps. This was true of CLOVEN, which would have been especially wasteful of my color ink with all the artwork, so I skipped this step. 

Because of this, perhaps the first time it felt real was the proof copy, and now, my tidy little stack of author copies, which arrived earlier this week and are all ready for the official release this coming Monday. For this particular project, this made it feel more real as an entire project, not just the text portions, but the artwork as well. It feels real in a way it has not yet felt real.  It's equally charming every time you catch sight of a book in its finite and finished form. 

I will making the links live and posting much promo material over on the socials in the next few days, so stay tuned.  

  

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