Week 1 of Trying To: Publish a Poetry Collection
Hi All,
Week 1 of Trying to: Publish a Poetry collection has not been very productive, unfortunately. I was down with the flu for a couple of days and recovery took too long.
We are not off to a great start, but that’s ok, this is exactly why we have a cushion built into our timeline. Things happen.
As per the Outline, the plan was to finalize the 3 Ls of the book – Length, Language and Layout.
My default starting point for research on any of these was just googling basic questions like “What is the ideal length of a poetry collection”.
Reading up on search results did give some useful information but did not help arrive at a definitive answer for any of the 3Ls.
I am yet to fully embrace the Chat GPT and other AI tools in general for my research. Maybe I should slowly start doing that in the future and see if that’s any better.
As for the Length, apparently there are 2 main types of Poetry collections – Chapbooks and a Full-length collection.
Although the length of each varies according to the publication, in general chapbooks are anywhere between 15-30 pages and anything more than that is a Full-length collection.
Interestingly enough, all the results on the Length were in terms of the page count. I could not find anything that relates to the poem count.
For me, a more important metric is the poem count in the book, because that will determine how many poems I need to write and how much time I should allocate to writing.
Digging further deep, a better metric to track is the number of themes/topics I want to cover in the book.
A poem is primarily about one topic (more or less), so If I have the number of topics and the number of poems per topic agreed upon, that will automatically set the page count and determine if the result is a chapbook or a full-length.
At least, that’s one way to arrange the collection.
We will explore more ways (by poetry form, by length, by language) next week when we work on themes and structure – Task#4.
(I keep saying ‘We’ even though I have no idea who constitutes We? Me and Who?)
A quick side note about the distinction between chapbook and full-length – chapbook is ‘technically’ not considered a formal publication, so poems in a chapbook can be added to the full-length later on since they are not ‘technically’ published.
This is not preferred as it’s always better to avoid re-publishing your work, but it’s nice to know that that is an option.
After some brainstorming, I decided to go with the Length of 15-16 poems.
I am not sure if there is any good rhyme or reason to that, other than the fact that I had allocated 8 weeks to writing poems averaging 1-2 a week.
With the lack of practice and a jaded mind in the current state, that’s a monumental task but at least there’s a start point, for now.
With a typical poem length of one poem per page and a graphic/sketch on the next page – the overall page count of the book comes out to be 30-40 pages which puts it at the sweet spot of chapbook verging on the full-length.
I know I am being very formulaic here which is not how Poetry should be handled, but doing this exercise has led to some success in my day-life professional career as an Engineer and a PM, so not why not try that in the creative endeavours?
Let’s treat this like a work project, and see where it leads?
Just waiting for Inspiration to strike has only led to procrastination and guilt so far.
As you can tell from my desktop wallpaper:
We will think more about the Structure of those 15 poems next week, but one thing of which I have clarity for this collection is that I want the book to be experimental.
I want to experiment with different themes, topics and forms. I want to go in with an attitude of ‘I have nothing to lose here’ and try out different things.
It’ll be fun!
I also want the Title of the book to be something along the lines of being experimental.
Already getting a head start on Task#7 in Publishing!
Speaking of, I went back and changed the durations of Deciding Title and Deciding book cover (Tasks 7 and 8).
I don’t know what I was thinking when I put 3-4 days for each of these.
In terms of getting the audience’s attention, these two are the most important tasks, so obviously we need a little bit more time there. I put 1 week for Title and 2 weeks for Cover.
While brainstorming, it also occurred to me that if I want this poetry collection to be truly mine, then I should be the one designing the book cover instead of getting any external help.
But to be able to do justice to it, I need to learn the skill set and become good at graphic design and art production.
I see another ‘Trying To’ series brewing. Love it!
Coming back to the L3.
We will go with 15 poems for now – 8 weeks worth of work.
Now on to the 2nd L – Language:
Here’s the conundrum: I am leaning towards my book being in Urdu, but these days when I think of ‘poets’, it’s always the English poets which come to mind first.
Somewhere, somehow, Walt Whitman and Syliva Plath preceded Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Ahmed Faraz in my brain even though I have read significantly more work of the latter and barely any of the former.
I guess it’s the prominence of English poets which is getting to me. English poets are certainly more well known, but this is purely because of English being the universal language. I think language has got more to do with it, than the actual poetry itself.
I barely read English poetry and except for a few, I find it hardly inspiring.
No disrespect to Whitman and Syliva, but in terms of quality, Faiz and Faraz are definitely at par with them, if not higher.
(Bdw: It’s interesting that my natural instinct is to refer to Syliva Plath by the first name and Walt Whitman by the last name which is more formal. I guess I feel more ‘connected’ and empathize with Sylvia)
Urdu is where it all started for me. When I think of Poetry, I think Urdu. Or used to.
Living in North America for the past 9 years has predisposed my brain to process things in English, so much so that my thoughts are also in English now.
I speak and communicate in English with others, but even when I am thinking and talking to myself – my brain speaks English most of the time which happens to be my second language.
This is a great commentary on what a great effect your surroundings and your environment has on your personality and your thinking.
Not to derail the topic, but I thought that was worth mentioning.
Now, back to the Language.
Purely from a marketing standpoint, and me being greedy for a wider audience reach – I thought it’s best to have poems in both languages – Urdu and English.
There’s also the cheesy reason of ‘I want to touch as many lives as I can.’
Even though I don’t fully internalize the nuances of English Poetry and don’t really consider myself a poet in English, but hey, we are experimenting!
Consistent with the theme of experimenting, some poems will originate in Urdu and others in English.
To further extend the reach – I am thinking of adding Roman Urdu script for each poem.
This is what I did for subtitles of my poetry video I made about 2 years ago using the free trial of Adobe cc [Youtube Video Link: Ek Jhalak – YouTube ]
I think the Roman Urdu Script will be a good addition as most people cannot read Urdu (unfortunately), and I include myself in that. With a loss of practice, I now struggle with reading Urdu text. Such a shame!
So, it’s decided!
Book will have both English and Urdu poems.
Counts of each origin language not defined yet. Translation and Roman Urdu script to accompany all poems.
Finally, the Layout:
With English, Urdu and Roman Urdu script – I think the page will be pretty much full.
Initial idea is to have English text on the left page, Urdu text on the right page – top, Roman text on the right page – bottom.
Another idea is to have the origin language text take up the full page – right or left, depending on whether it’s Urdu or English. The translation and the roman Urdu text will share the other page.
This gives the reader a good indication of the origin language of a particular poem.
I think this is a good approach. Let’s stick with this.
If there’s any space left, that will be used for sketches/drawings/pictures.
Now, we do have to fit in a lot of things in a small/precious real estate of the page.
To ensure the content doesn’t feel too crammed in, I thought of adding a limit on the poem length – how many lines of poem there can be but gave up on the idea later.
But I felt that to be too limiting.
For now, let’s just not answer the question in Task#3 – “How long do poems need to be to stay consistent with the book aesthetic (and yet not compromise on the content) ?”
Although this goes against the Principle of Creative Limitations by Robert Mckee, I don’t want to restrict myself on the length of the poem itself, at least for now.
I’d rather this be free flowing and get whatever I want on the page.
Let’s get the content first, then worry about the logistics of placement.
Lastly, in terms of the actual book size, layout, margins – there is a host of material on the internet, and I thought it’s best to leave this to be explored during the publishing phase.
In general, the book will be a small copy – easy to carry, easy to handle and easy to look at from the inside with even margins and a good amount of white space on the page.
From a cursory reading on the internet, it seemed the ‘rules’ differ slightly for a traditional book vs an e-book, so it’s best to look into this later depending on which route we are taking.
…aaand, I think that’s it.
We can call that a wrap!
Even though it wasn’t a great start to the week, I feel a sense of accomplishment here, which is always a good feeling.
Next week, the goal is to have a list of themes finalised – essentially, topics I want to write poems about. We will also try to work on the structure of the book and how we want the poems in the book to be organised.
Here’s hoping that I stay motivated throughout this journey and not drop off in the middle because that would be embarrassing.
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Ilyas