Although the blog might have seemed a little quiet of late much has been going on behind the scenes. Ravenshead Press has been busy working alongside the poets from the Poets’ Graves forum to produce a collection which captured a cross section of the poetry which passes through it.

Many poems were submitted for possible inclusion and each received rigorous examination by the editors. Results were widely mixed with some poems getting equal yes and no votes, others fell into the maybe category. Quickly a core of excellent poems began to form and excitement grew among the editorial team. To build on that core the maybe poems were re-visited and assigned definite yes or no votes. This process took several months during which we passed from summer into winter.

We reached the stage where we had the contents of the book but needed a name for the project and to create some sort of order to it all. Several of the poems had names that seemed fitting for a title and it was John Nash who suggested that Suzanne Johanson’s poem Making Contact provided the perfect fit. Certainly that title provides an interesting theme that colours the reading of many of the poems. It also seems very fitting for a group of talented poets who are reaching out to the wider world in ways that include print magazines, e-zines and this book.

Next the poems needed sorting into some sort of cohesive order. The easiest way proved to be printing them all out then spreading them over the floor. Poems were matched up with other poems that had a similar theme/pattern/locality. These ended up forming three piles which were then placed in a suitable order. It is surprising how well some of these poems play off others.

The book at this point ended on a rather sombre note, this was soon addressed though. Throughout the project several poets had expressed an interest in seeing poems by Barrie included. Barrie had been a core part of the forum until he sadly passed away four years ago. Despite several attempts to find ways to contact his family we repeatedly failed until Lucy Lu passed on an address for one of his daughters. Although she no longer lived at the same address it was enough to enable Google to offer a more up to date means of contact. Tamsin kindly gave the project permission to use her father’s poems and one in particular which now ends the book on a much lighter note.

The final hurdle was the cover design. I was dead set on a highly colourful look after my experience at the Poetry Fair earlier in the year. However Sam Webster who is John Nash’s partner provided a selection of photos for us to use if we wished. All of these were in black and white and one in particular got almost universal approval (the detractor was me since I wanted colour). John then produced a couple of mock-up covers one of which worked well enough with the image to sway me. Today the first batch of books arrived from the printers and I have to say the cover looks just great, thanks John.