Meandering toward a book

Well, finally, it looks like my new poetry book, The Great Hunger, will appear soon from Plain View Press. I'm waiting for the cover design. The galley proofs are done. These things always take longer than we anticipate, but it will be worth the wait. Although, once it's set and sold, the chance of embarrassment increases. It's too late to refine and revise; it's time to, as Valery said, abandon the poems, let them try their wings, fly out of the nest, and all those other cliched descriptions of letting go, like raising children and sending them out into the world still a little green, raw, unfinished. I'd like to think the work is as good as I can make it, but that niggling thought still pops into my head, "Oh, no! It's still not good enough." Too late, too late!

Time then to concentrate on the business end of writing--getting a list together of people who might be interested in reviewing the work (however ragged it may seem to me), another list of those who might buy the book, including book stores, and a guest list for the launch party. I have a place in mind, one I am told will be available, and a fabulous singer-song writer--Frank Gregg--who will play for the guests. I know where I'll get the big boxes of coffee and where to find a punch bowl. I'm rehearsing, sort of,  the thanks to the people who helped, my version of the Academy speech, though less glamorous. Well, knowing me and my friends, it'll be a lot less glamorous but way more fun. This is not my first book, but it's the youngest, and the baby always gets the bulk of ones attention. I just hope this kid behaves and doesn't spit up on someone's best jeans.