I think that 50 poems is a good cut off point for a themed poetry book … it gives the theme plenty of space to stretch its legs, but it doesn’t outstay its welcome.
I do like big books that I can sink my teeth into, but sometimes I do think brevity might have been a better modus operandi. Knowing when to leave the scene of a crime is a very important skill.
I used to be academia verbose, but a stint in journalism training cut that out like the unnecessary chaff that it is. I, of course love words, and have a fondness for the multisyllabic, but sometimes you just need to say it and cut out the bullshit.
I have a few different aesthetics that I wish to push in my work, and I have a hankering for something really epic as far as the poetry goes … a whole book of one poem, maybe a hundred pages long; maybe my Iliad or something equally pompous … I always had this theory that artists try to emulate that first piece of work they fall in love with, and mine was The Wasteland by T. S. Eliot. My multipart book series should also dawn at some point. Maybe some extracts here? Who knows?
2015 demands a curveball.
regular movement 