It is done!
It has 56 pages; 6336 words (a lovely palindrome of numbers), and contains 48 poems, which have been whittled down from about 80. The poems all lean against each other nicely after much arranging and re-arranging. It has a simple one-word name, which pleases me and feels representative of the collection as a whole.
It needs just one more proof and I will print and bind two copies of it. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: my dissertation. Four months of hard work: editing, refining, re-editing, refining, re-writing, panicking, re-editing, organising, a bit more panicking (just for good measure) and finally some paper, a cover and some glue.
It's hard to believe that a year ago I was finishing off an End of Course Assessment for the Last module of my OU degree, whilst beginning the coursework for the MA at Queen's in Belfast. A year later, I feel a little wiser about the process of writing poetry and very, very pleased with the results of my labours. I feel I've come a good ways closer to gaining the poetry goals I set myself.
I wish I could say that I'm taking a break, but the demands of setting up Creative Writing classes for the fall term have to be sorted out... as well as a few other new ventures that may (hopefully) come on line.
In the meantime - yee-flippin-ha! :D
6 comments:
Woo hoo! There is something very rounded about 48 poems totalling 6336 words over 4 months and I love the idea of the collection 'leaning' together. Good luck with the classes and the other ventures.
Yes I think there could be something nice about the whole thing - but I don't want to scupper anything just yet by being too gleeful...
Hearties congrats, Barbara...a fantastic achievement - sure looks
like your hard work has paid off...and the MA you did sounds glorious (read about it on their website)...wishful thinking has me imagining taking a job-break and signing up for it...one day...in the probably quite distant future though! ; ) Dream on, I say to myself ; )
Yee hah indeedy. I hope you're going to celebrate ...
Congratulations!
A year ago I was just finishing AZX300. This year I've done 'Post-colonial literature' and a basic French course, as well as finally deciding to put my mother into a care home. I've sent off my project (just under 6 000 words)on Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill who, as I'm sure you know, writes in Irish, a language I don't speak. I'm now going to take a break to concentrate on writing poetry.
I've been out of the blogoshere for the last three months.
Congratulations! 48 good poems is a heck of a lot of good poems.
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