"Without you, this book would not be"

The stretch between writing, publicly reading and launching a book is extensive. It mirrors the very differing states of being pregnant, talking about being pregnant, and actually giving birth.

And then.
Then there is the advertising, the marketing, the work of selling your book. This mirrors breastfeeding, burping, nappy-changing and generally doing all those things that your darling needs, in order to keep thriving.

If you had known exactly what was coming at you, you might not have chosen this route. Well, I should probably rather change that sentence into the first person. I might not have chosen this route.

But I had an ulterior motive: I badly wanted this baby. I wanted a beautiful, fat Heffalump. Did I know she would start walking the moment she was out? No.

Well - it has been a steep learning curve, giving birth to a herbivore: they really do stand on their own legs immediately. I have held for dear life onto her tail, as she has galumphed happily into the world, reminding me that I am merely human, while she ... is of another order altogether.

It's a beautiful thing. My wildest expectations have been exceeded. The Hogsback launch could not have gone better, my reading in Grahamstown was well-received, and next week there will be a launch at Exclusive Books in Cape Town.

However, the dramatic increase in social buzz, organising, online communications, meeting lovely people, autographing with special messages - all this boon has robbed me of sleep and of peace even during the daytime, as my mind sprints through the to-do list and my neglected creative soul sits and sulks.

Busyness has caused me to re-tick the boxes with my basic priorities: SOLITUDE, QUIET, DOMESTIC BLISS, LOVE/ INTIMACY, PERSONAL FREEDOM.

That is all very well. Yet I am responsible for my Heffalump, and I am responsible to the good people listening, reading, buying her.

So I have no choice but to balance the responsibilities, patiently and wisely.

As Walter Benjamin said, the work of art gives birth to the artist, who must reinvent herself.

And Norman? Where are you in all of this? You, whose face is represented now in the homes of all who've got the book, and whose spirit and quirks and moments with me are being perused and pondered?

Why do these questions bring a strange peace into me?

Something has been fulfilled that was waiting. It has all been worth it. Like Strandloop, which you inscribed for me as something that you could not have put together without me, Greater Matter could and would not be without you.

Norman's inscription in my copy of Strandloop

Slowly galumphing ...

Greater Matter is slowly galumphing its way into the world. I'm onto the fourth draft of Sacred Space, which is the third section of the book. And I even managed to get the Contents Pages for Sections 1 and 2 done the other day! 54 pages, thus far ... though I spaced the poems more in Section 2 ... not sure it'll stay that way ...

Anyway, here's a poem from Sacred Space, a section which records the story of the singular adventure of Norman's wake -

Wrack of sobs

Forced back home the day after you die in my arms

because our house has been burgled –

en route must pull over, stop the car

for sobs so strong

they’d crack my skull on the steering wheel

were I not at the same time catching my head –

wracked this way I feel

the elemental Force of Love

thrusting me each time

helpfully forward.

- from Sacred Space, Section 3 of Greater Matter 

And here - I'm so proud - writing down the page numbers. What a slog.

   

BIG MOMENT: the quiet, happy birth of my Heffalump

I have sent Section 8 of Greater Matter to my readers. Here is the title poem for it - Blood in Ink (previously published in the latest Ecca book, Throw in your Song).

Now to incorporating my readers' feedback to create a sleeker or at any rate fully mobile fourth draft, while also stepping away from my book to face it with my head in editing mode. A kind of freedom. The heffalump is born. Now to learn to ride her. 

From Throw in your Song, Ecca Poets, Hogsback, 2018, p.40

Stepping stones

Third draft of third section done by an all-day fire and mist clouding all but the nearest leaves outside.

Stepping stones to the heffalump

... getting there slowly ...

I am very grateful to the kind people who are offering their precious time to read the third draft critically. I look forward to their feedback. 

Otherwise, mulling. Not sure this poem should be in or out ... if in, WHERE? Questions of rhythm, sound echoes, and of course the story step-stepping poem by poem through it all.

  

PS. Totally tangential mull. Why PanMacMillan didn't take on The Griffin Elegy is a puzzle to me. I guess there are simply too many writers and too many stories and too many poems, all of them obviously far more appealing and more saleable than my stuff. Ah well. We soldier on. True to self and all that. I can see I'm going to have to home-birth all my books. What a business. I've experience birthing a human, but a heffalump? Not to rush it. Be tortoise.

My heffalump and our friends

On Friday I completed the first draft of my journey of poems recording the adventure with Norman to death and beyond. It is a gathering of a great many poems, which I will now have to trim down significantly.

I sent notice of this state of affairs to friends, saying that I suppose I shall have to reduce what is currently the size of a Savannah elephant to the size of a Forest elephant - and one of those friends sent me this image.

Nothing could express better than it how I currently feel!

It is, once again, a confirmation of one of Norman's and my favourite quotations (adapted from Yeats) - "May we by our friends be known."