Getting to know your own collection

Many poets seem to leave their book behind as soon as it's published, but at that point I feel I'm only just getting to know it.

First of all, the reviews it receives (if the poet's lucky!), provide an excellent sounding board. Which poems do reviewers highlight? What elements are cast into doubt? And secondly, what about the readers who buy the collection? These days, they often select a favourite poem or two from the book and post them on social media. Which ones are chosen? And thirdly, the poems that the poet might also decide to share. Which generate most traction? Which are most popular? Which garner most sales of the book? And then there are in-person readings. As mentioned previously on here, those events enable the poet to explore their collection again, to test which poems go down best in person, and which appear to disappoint.

And finally, the poet often benefits from time to weigh up all this feedback, to gauge it, to avoid dramatic, knee-jerk reactions to it, to compare and contrast it, to consider how it might (or might not!) contribute to the writing of their next collection. Of course, none of this process is possible if they turn their back on the book and immediately embark on another creative project as soon as a copy reaches their hands. The seemingly fallow period that follows publication is, in my view, a necessary pause, a pause that may be filled by the satisfaction of engaging with readers.

My personal experience of selling poetry collections in the current climate

With no access to slots at major festivals, no wholesaler, no chance to get copies on shelves at physical bookshops, no distribution in the U.S. or Canada, no realistic retail prices on Amazon, no reviews in broadsheets or major print-based journals, Nell (at HappenStance) and I have now shifted going on for 250 copies of Whatever You Do, Just Don't. And I'm determined to ensure there will be plenty more sales of it to come over the next few years.

In this context, I'm inevitably left wondering just how many I'd have sold with any of the external commercial support network I've mentioned above. And, given that many significantly funded poetry publishers (who do have this sort of backing) have stated their average sales of full collections barely reach three figures, why aren't they flogging far more copies than me instead of far fewer...?

My review of Alan Buckley's Still

My review of Alan Buckley's new collection, Still (Blue Diode Press, 2025), is now up at The Friday Poem. You can read it in full via this link, but here's a snippet to whet your appetite...
The coherent and cogent use of syllabics in English cannot ignore the natural stresses, the iambs and trochees, the anapests and dactyls – all surging and ebbing within a syllabic framework that offers a quieter music just below those stresses...

The book waits...

The book waits in the box. Maybe for a reading where someone might like the poems enough to grab it, instead of it having to be placed back in the poet's rucksack at the end. Maybe for the poet to get his finger out and share a poem from it on social media. Maybe for a birthday. Maybe for Christmas. 

The book only wants a single pair of hands to stretch its spine and open it at last. It's asking you to pick it up and let its words wrap their legs round your heart...

The Last Carry on YouTube

The Last Carry is now on my YouTube channel! I uploaded a video of me reading the poem last week, and it's already reached over 350 views. I do feel YouTube is another useful (free!) resource for poets to get their poems out there and transmit the pauses, the accelerations, the cadences, the stresses, the aural textures, etc, etc, that come alive when poetry's read aloud.

I do hope you enjoy it...!

A thousand likes

I can't quite believe that my poem ‘The Last Carry’ has now reached over a thousand likes on Bluesky, many of them from people beyond the poetry bubble. Oh, and a fair few of those likes have then gone on to generate sales of Whatever You Do, Just Don't. All in all, a terrific example of how social media, when functioning at its best, can generate new readers for poetry.

Christopher James' The Ice Sonnets

Well, I probably shouldn't write a review of Christopher James' new pamphlet, The Ice Sonnets (Dithering Chaps, 2025), given that my endorsement appears on its back cover, but I can recommend it thoroughly and suggest you get hold of a copy for yourself by visiting the Dithering Chaps webshop. To give you a flavour of this top-notch collection, here's that aforementioned endorsement...

‘In The Ice Sonnets, Christopher James tells the story of Shackleton’s expedition via a collage effect of juxtaposing exquisitely drawn pen portraits of its participants, interweaving the characters, drawing out the group dynamics that develop in extreme conditions. These poems tell a highly specific tale with universal ramifications.’