Are we there yet?

October is the month in which I hand over my collection to my publisher, Jan Fortune of Cinnamon Press. It is going to be so hard to let go if these poems. I worry about them needing more work. I worry that they don’t do justice to the merchant seaman and others whose stories they re-tell. I worry they are too long, too short, not poetic enough.

The date is fixed for the launch next May, the cover has been chosen from a remarkable set of photographs taken by Bill Lazell who was with the Royal Artillery.

The poems have their supporters, not least Jan, my local writers group who have read them, critiqued them and become sufficiently involved to go and look up the ships on Wikipedia, my writerly friend, Vanessa who has been urging me on every step of the way.

So twenty days to go. No – I’m not there yet but close.