As I mentioned back in December, one of the projects I’m working on this year is to re-publish a chapbook of poems I wrote back in 1993 about my first journey to Europe, a family journey as exciting and as fulfilling as I had always hoped.
The original chapbook was ‘published’ (read typed and photocopied) in a limited edition of twelve. It was mainly poems written on, or just after that trip, and some selected diary entries. It was printed originally in A4, twenty-two pages, individually numbered, two-sided photocopies, spiral bound with a postcard from the journey pasted on the opening page of each copy and given to friends.
The project this year has been to digitise that chapbook, trying to keep as much of the spirit of the original as possible, but making it more available in ebook and paperback format. I’m hoping to have that online by the end of April when I plan to return to Europe, not for the first time since then, but with that journey firmly in mind.
Meanwhile, here’s some of the photographs I took on the trip, some of which I’ll include in the new edition. There’s nothing spectacular about them, or distinctive. But they do, I think, have a certain feel of the ‘time’, obvious places, obvious holiday ‘snaps’ taken on film on my Minolta 303 (pictured below) that I lugged around with me all the way, along with a pasta maker for much of the journey! But that’s another story.
The mini-collection, Us, Falling for It, should be out next month.
thinking about poetry 