14 min
from "After the Rehearsals" Walking Thru' Fire
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- Books
My second 2018 volume of poetry, After the Rehearsals, was entirely different to anything I had attempted before. Initially the collection wasn’t meant to be poetry at all but was in fact the beginnings of a novel.
I had written around thirty-four thousand words of the narrative and arrived at, what is for me, a critical juncture in the creation of a work of fiction i.e. that point at which I have to decide whether or not I believe in the project.
In this particular case, although it transpired that I had little faith in the novel, I still liked the story, and so I decided to see if I could create a sequence of prose poems to carry the narrative. Those thirty-four thousand words were soon edited in a somewhat radical fashion and, when the story was subsequently seen through to its conclusion, the end result was After the Rehearsals.
My intention was to create a cohesive story told in prose poem format, but with each element strong enough to stand alone. I hope I succeeded. In order to get the most from the book, it is, I’m sure, a volume of poetry which needs to be read from beginning to end as if it were a novel.
In this podcast I will read just three pieces from the book; one from early on, and two from later in the narrative.
My second 2018 volume of poetry, After the Rehearsals, was entirely different to anything I had attempted before. Initially the collection wasn’t meant to be poetry at all but was in fact the beginnings of a novel.
I had written around thirty-four thousand words of the narrative and arrived at, what is for me, a critical juncture in the creation of a work of fiction i.e. that point at which I have to decide whether or not I believe in the project.
In this particular case, although it transpired that I had little faith in the novel, I still liked the story, and so I decided to see if I could create a sequence of prose poems to carry the narrative. Those thirty-four thousand words were soon edited in a somewhat radical fashion and, when the story was subsequently seen through to its conclusion, the end result was After the Rehearsals.
My intention was to create a cohesive story told in prose poem format, but with each element strong enough to stand alone. I hope I succeeded. In order to get the most from the book, it is, I’m sure, a volume of poetry which needs to be read from beginning to end as if it were a novel.
In this podcast I will read just three pieces from the book; one from early on, and two from later in the narrative.
14 min