The pamphlet process

I've been catching up on Leicester poet Roy Marshall's account of putting together his debut poetry chapbook, Gopagilla, due out from Crystal Clear Creators in March next year. I'm always intrigued by the process of putting together collections, and I agree wholeheartedly with what Roy says about input from an editor - I've always enjoyed having to argue the case for some poems, or for certain passages between them.

I can identify, too, with what he says about laying all his possible poems out on the floor, to work out which ones fit with each other. I'm just tentatively starting the process of doing that with some new poems myself, although more with a view to deciding which might make up the core of a subsequent collection than to coming up with any kind of finished line-up. It makes the house look even more of a mess than usual, of course, but it's surprising how often you notice something new about an old poem when you read it while you're ironing shirts, or peeling spuds.