Quiet

I used to be a very good blogger. Diligent, committed. I'd spend hours constructing my posts and re-editing, then responding to my followers. I had followers then. That was Shallowlands, and in the end it all got too much and I had to shut it down. No, I don't regret it. Even if I'm now typing to an audience no bigger than my immediate family.

There is a conflict for most writers between needing to be in the public eye (so that one's work is read/noticed) and needing to be private, contained, cooking up those creative gems in the comfort of one's own (undistracted) head. I am torn between the apparent necessity of social media and the need not to get dragged off into the bush and killed.

No, I'm sure that's not at all what happens. No, of course I'm exaggerating. But though I dislike the sense that I have all but vanished from the literary landscape (I laugh. As if I was ever there!) I still have these overwhelming instinct to keep my head down. I am fighting it. I'm not sure who is winning.

Still, there's a poem in the Forward Book of Poetry 2010, which announces itself on the cover as the Best Poems of the Year. It's the title poem of my most recent book, the very first poem in said book, and truly, if you read on, there are many other gems in there. If you haven't had a peek, go to Amazon marketplace now and pick one up for less than a London pint.