I suspect every poet – and every person who tries to scrape some kind of living in the arts – has days where they wonder if what they’re doing has any kind of value. And lord knows we’re living in difficult times under a government which couldn’t make much clearer its contempt for what they like to portray as the liberal, wishy-washy, woke world of creatives. Most days it’s easy enough to brush that off as the loud clanging of an eternally empty vessel, but it can – over time, and on the wrong day – hit a raw point, wear us down.
So huge thanks to the folk who make the effort and take the time to let poets and artists and musicians know what their work means and how it impacts on the world. Thanks to anyone who’s ever said Nice one, mate or bought a book or shared a video. And this week, and in this blog, thanks to Internet of Words for an absolutely stellar review of my collection ‘thirty-one small acts…’. A review so good that I still re-read it with a sense of wonder and disbelief, as well as a renewed determination to keep doing what I love, knowing that I just might be doing something more than shouting in the dark.
That review is just the latest (no.10 in an ongoing series, I think) of reviews of pamphlets and collections by poets you most likely haven’t heard of. Take a few minutes to read the rest of the series, and see what else is out there. You never know, you might find something that’s been written just for you.