What sort of bad is it Dave? Arty bad? Overdesigned bad? Or just incompetent
bad? Sounds like they went for the former, and achieved the latter.
There aren't many things that temper the joy of getting your hands on a
fresh-minted copy of your book quite like intermediaries' incompetence.
(Except when it's your own incompetence says he recalling the day Chapman 72
came back from the printers proudly titled 'Ivory Towers Under SEIGE'. I
later claimed that seige is the Scots spelling.)
P
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to
> poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of David Bircumshaw
> Sent: 23 December 2005 00:43
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Robin Hamilton - Pacts and Conjurations - New
> and Selected Poems
>
> Dear Chopped Rodent
>
> I got my copy of Speaking Words in the post today, I am quite
> bemused at that how an anthology with so much financial
> support manages to look like the ultimate piece of crap, I
> was showing it to several European persons tonight and they
> were bewildered at the ability of the English to make rubbish
> out of something. My own poems haven't suffered too much -
> one prose poem has been printed as centered, while another
> poem has a dropped line that isn't supposed to be there, but
> it could be worse. I haven't dared yet look at yours in case
> they might have been butchered.
>
> CONGRATULATIONS on your book.
>
> All the Best
>
> Dave
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Robin Hamilton" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, December 23, 2005 12:29 AM
> Subject: Re: Robin Hamilton - Pacts and Conjurations - New
> and Selected Poems
>
>
> > >> Joanna (Boulter) wearing her editor's hat, chopped
> [rightly] quite
> > >> a
> bit
> > >> from it, mostly rhymed poems.
> > >
> > > You lie! It was only 2 or 3 that I actually chopped
> >
> > Um ... I beg to differ.
> >
> > There were the Class Exclusions -- no translations, nothing
> from the
> > Sparrow&Spider ... [Why does bloody +everyone+ loathe the
> Sparrow and
> > the Spider? It has to be the only example of Consensus
> Judgement I've
> > ever encountered. With the exception of the Jimmy Crichton
> poems, one
> > of which [details on demand] has just been published in the
> +Speaking
> > Words+ anthology, you rubbished virtually every rhymed poem
> I ever wrote.
> >
> > With the exception of (among others) "Hearthside Lullaby".
> >
> > You were right, and the only reason I didn't dedicate the
> entire damn
> > book to you was that it was pointed out to me that you
> can't dedicate
> > a book to your editor.
> >
> > So the end result is better than what I submitted.
> >
> > So sue me.
> >
> > But I still think "Persuasions to Enjoy" should have stayed.
> >
> > <grumble>
> >
> > A Dumb Rodent
> >
> > (howling in anguish)
> >
> > > (though that begs the question of whether or not I *ought to have
> chopped
> > > further.) I fiddled your order about a bit, too. And I'd do it
> > > again, if
> I
> > > had to.
>
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