Off to the printers
Last week and up until Wednesday, I was reviewing proofs and corresponding with Jane Commane – Editor and Director of Nine Arches Press. Page size constraints and the Nine Arches Press font led me to revisit the spacing and layout of my poems. Jane’s questions helped me to articulate and clarify my intent; for me, writing is often a process whereby form is arrived at, rather than the form being a container for the poem. I’ve become clearer about how white space is important for my poems, both around each poem and also within the body of poems. I often write to create a sense of visual rhythm and flow on the page. I also place words both horizontally and vertically to create layers of meaning. I signal how much words should be linked in reading by choosing not to hyphenate, hyphenating and compounding words. Now that my collection is off to the printers, I’m excited about sharing it as a Gesamtkunstwerk; until I reached this point, I think I still saw it as individual poems. Now those poems are working together like individual plants growing together as a garden.