"Good morning" Charlie Gracie

I haven't had time for a proper look at this book, which I got at the Stirling Writers' Big Event last week, but you will be able to see one of Charlie's poems (my favourite, actually)Clyde valley Walkway, late April, with my Father here in July.
This month features Chris Powici, who was tutor of the Stirling Writers Group until recently, when he became editor of Northwords Now.

The point of the post, though, is to show you the first of the new Die-hard hard cover books. Sally and Ian King reckon that the only way to keep ahead of the e-book phenomenon is to make books gorgeous, and they have. The books have board covers, lovely cream paper, and will lie flat when you open them for ease of reading. Brilliant, no?

the process of poem

Two helpful comments from poets on the process of poem:
At a recent meeting of SCoP (the Stirling Centre of Poetry)Kathleen Jamie said, "The hardest thing to teach students is that you have to let the shit fall onto the page".
true, all too true. We have a tendency to censor what we are writing as we write it so a poem can be mummified before it is even born.

And I've just read this from W N Herbert's book "Writing Poetry";
"Most people --- don't read it (their draft) closely. What they see tends to be as much what they intended to write as much as what is actually on the page--Simply reading what you have actually written is by no means easy."

That is probably the most helpful thing I have ever read.