That is a fantastic cover, and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t get anything as wonderful this time round. I was, of course, completely wrong. The cover to this book is just fabulous, in every sense of the word. I’m a massive fan of Sarah-Jane Crowson. She creates dark, surreal, beautiful images – collages of words and visual elements that are not only beautiful, but thought provoking. They draw you in to a strange world of crinolined birds and stars and blue distances. If you’d told me a year ago that she would be designing a book cover for me, I’d have – I don’t know – scoffed. I’d have laughed at you. But she did. And it’s gorgeous. I’m wondering if you can frame a book and put it on the wall. She has given me an image that feels like a distillation of the feeling I hope you get from the collection. There are traces of old myths here, and I hope that there are new ones. Things half seen, half remembered. You should check out Sarah-Jane’s website. She’s a marvel. https://scrowson.myportfolio.com/in-the-dream-garden-thoughts-are-jewels
I wanted to share my experience of working with Black Bough founder, Matt, and encourage you to put yourself forward for this. Black Bough is a lovely press, producing really high quality work.
Matthew Smith is the founder of Black Bough Poetry, and the editor of my new poetry collection, The Poet Spells Her Name. I wanted to write a post about what it’s been like to work with him, because he has been the thing that made the difference.
I feel like that old, corny story about the footprints in the sand. If you looked down at the footprints we’ve left over the last few months, since we started this journey towards publication, you would mostly see Matt’s. He has definitely been carrying me, and I’m immensely grateful for that.
Things were tickety-boo when we started discussing this, but round about the time the work started properly, I re-started chemo. I’ve not been too bad in terms of physicals symptoms (I have hair – yay!, I’m not too nauseous – double yay! – and my taste hasn’t been too bad), but I have been drained of concentration, creativity, and energy. I literally could not have got this far without Matt’s enthusiasm and energy and support. If you follow him on Twitter, you’ll know he easily has enough of all that for two. Maybe more. I know he’s mentoring at the moment and has mentoring slots coming up.
I’ve been a Black Bough devotee since pretty early in its life. I #Top Tweet Tuesday as often as I can. To be published by Black Bough in a book of my own is amazing. And maybe we’re a good fit. I tend towards short poems. I like poems that grab you by the elbow and say, urgently, “look at this. Look at it!”. The haiku spirit of standing alongside the reader and hoping that they see what you see. On reflection, I think this meant that Matt didn’t have to rein me in too much. We didn’t strip out much. His big job was keeping me going and waiting patiently for me to get back to him. I really appreciate that patience.
Being edited is a strange process. Matt’s attention to detail and his outsider view really helped me to look at the work. He was right pretty much all of the time. I stood my ground over some capitalisations, but that meant articulation WHY the capitals mattered to me (and why I didn’t want some). I’m an instinctive writer. My process is :m
Think
Think
Write
Think
Read it out loud
Mess around a bit
Read it out loud again
Off you go.
So articulating choices was an interesting discipline for me. I think that thoughtfulness has made this the best book it could be. I’m very proud of what we’ve made. I’m very grateful to have had the chance to work with Matt and Black Bough. It’s been very special.
I’m really honoured and delighted and thrilled to have been given the opportunity to have a Silver Branch feature from Black Bough Poetry.
Black Bough publish regular anthologies of imagist micro-poems (their Christmas and Winter editions are beatiful and moving and wintry and perfect), facilitate the weekly #TopTweetTuesday poetry-fest on Twitter AND have created a series of Silver Branch showcases for featured poets. I was so moved and excited to be invited to be a featured poet. Please look at what Matthew M C Smith has created here. He really demonstrates that editing is an art form in its own right.
After the snow was cleared, a new drift, silent and silver, a spell in street light. In crisp and cold, Christmas lights sparkle and through doors, a stove is warm. In the dark of a room, the halo-flame lights a face, the hunched figure before a bright hearth. In crackle and smoke images are kindled: the winter king’s burning ship; the infant Christ, star-cradled; wild-eyed Saturn and his stumbling train and deeper, an older time: a forest in bitter mid-winter, where drums beat and shadows rush and run. A heavy bough of holly prickles and berries, sweet and bloody, are trampled underfoot .
A second poem from Matthew M C Smith. Matthew is a writer for Swansea. He loves winter Christmas and wants to write more festive poetry. Matthew has just edited Black Bough poetry’s Christmas and Winter edition, available on Amazon.
Matthew is also the driving force behind #TopTweetTuesday, a weekly Twitter event, where poets share poems. It’s a phenomenon.
It’s #DeepTimeDay, marking the publication of Vol 2 of the Deep Time poetry project. If you head over to Twitter, that hashtag will lead you to a feast of readings by a bevy of wonderful poets. Matthew at Black Bough Poetry has curated/created something wonderful here. I’m so proud to be part of it.
Sarah writes poems 