Thursday, 22 September 2011
How to order a collection
So I have finally come back to thinking about putting a collection of poems - or at least a pamphlet sized collection - that I can send off to publishers. There are several reasons why I have been putting it off and these include lack of time and fear of rejection. Still the time has come and today I began thinking about how I would ever put the poems I have into some kind of order. This led me to thinking about what the overriding themes are within my work and I narrowed it down to: childhood/family, loss/alienation and other poems - it is these other poems that are the most problematical to place. Some of them are about place e.g. rivers, forests, journeys) but others are more abstract and harder to define. It is hard to know how to put this body of work together in any kind of comprehensible order. I have thought of moving through the work as if it is a life cycle starting with poems about childhood moving through to adulthood but that leaves me wondering how to place the poems about nature and other subjects. It also made me wonder do I mix my prose poems which are about a fictional family amongst more personal poems about childhood? These are difficult questions and as yet I have come up with no definite answers.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
4 comments:
What collections have you read where you faulted the order of the poems? Does the order really matter so much? If the publisher loves the poems yet hates the ordering they won't hesitate to put things right for you.
I suspect that if you avoid alternating rapidly between topics and avoid randomising the order of poems that have an obvious chronological sequence, you'll be ok. If you've writing a book rather than a pamphlet, sections might help (each like a little pamphlet), but the editor might overrule you anyway.
Hi Tim I guess I can't think of many where I questioned the order. i did read a pamphlet recently where I questioned the author's choice for first and last poem - I guess she was going for shock value - and I read a collection last year for reviewing that was divided into sections but there seemed to be no logical or discernible reason for it. (in the end I decided not to review it).
Thanks for your advice - I guess I might be over thinking it!
There's also making the poetry manuscript, which looks good.
Thanks Tim I shall look that up!
Post a Comment