Dancing with Delsie and other poems

Just got my copy of this today from the nice people at Leaf Books. The poems inside are the winner, runner-up and all the commended entries from the most recent Leaf poetry competition – including my piece “Pants Outside Trousers, Big Letter H on T Shirt, Here to Save the World”.

There are 27 poems in all, and to my untutored eye they all look pretty good. I’m really not sure what I’m doing in there, but it’s certainly nice to have on the shelf.

Anyway, this is what they have to say about my poem in the introduction:

There’s not room to mention them all here, but take, for example, ‘Pants Outside Trousers, Big Letter H on T Shirt, Here to Save the World’. It has a haiku in its title – two poems for the price of one – and is otherwise notable in that it’s a truly successful comic verse, and a metapoetic one at that – something that all too rarely makes it into our anthologies.

Aw. Isn’t that nice? I’m blushing all over.

Incidentally, the title was originally “Pants Outside Trousers, Big Letter H on T Shirt”. Then I counted the syllables and realised that all it needed was an extra clause to turn it into a proper haiku. Why a haiku in the title? Well, you’ll have to read the poem to find out. The book is available from Leaf Books at a mere £8.99, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Finally, a big thank you to Dorothy Crossan, who organises the monthly SlingInk Poetry Challenge, without which this poem would never have come into existence!

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