Back to the Old Question of Order

 I am back to the old question of how to order my collection - having put together a pamphlet sized collection - I then expanded it to a full collection - however I knew in my heart of hearts that some of the poems weren't entirely up to scratch. This was confirmed when my mentor looked at it. She earmarked some poems to take out and some to work on some more and some themes that I could pursue further.  Luckily I had already been writing some new and what I consider to be more exciting work. I had been thinking that I would save this new work but now I am thinking that it will be the nucleus of the collection (along with the sequence of prose poems).

I feel like I have worked hard on this collection - pushing myself to edit and re-edit and pushing the boundaries of my writing.  I now have to reconsider my order. I had put the poems in a kind of chronological order - starting with poems about childhood. This I now realise is a little obvious - I need to be more subtle, to find other more tenuous connections between the poems.

Next week I am devoting a full five days to working on what I have - I am excited and a little scared. I will be away from the Internet and my usual distractions. I will be forced to face myself and my writing demons.