Ta-DAA! My book manuscript, Doctor of the World, won the Finishing Line Press Open Chapbook Competition. Now they want me to promote it. This is how it goes. In the old days with the big presses they took on that job themselves. Now the press has sent me a detailed promotion package to tell me how to do it. My first “job” is to send out postcards asking people to pre-order. Really? At 56 cents a stamp? I guess it helps the press see how many books to print, as a start.
I adore the cover. I found it by just digging around online. It’s from a woman in Germany, Catrin Welz Stein. Exactly the right image. Catrin sold me the rights to use it for not much money. Yes, of course I had to pay for that myself. Do-it-yourself book.
The book is short, about 30 pages. That’s what a chapbook is. The poems are prose poems. I don’t know what a prose poem is any more than I suppose you do, but when I read one, I recognize the poem-ness in it. Why would a poet write something that looks like a block of prose? How did I get started writing these poems? I’d say I wasn’t hearing in my head any pauses of the kind a traditional poem’s line endings ask for.
I’d say the poem comes at me like a brief conversation heard just outside the door. I don’t know what its full story is, entirely, but I know it’s a thing, a unit on its own. It has a wholeness to it.
Even the most traditional poem, if it’s a good one, begins with a first draft straight out of the mysterious stratosphere. Somewhere connected to the dream-world. Then you go to work on it. The rational mind does the editing, cuts out lines, adds lines, chooses a different word.
These particular prose poems seem to me to echo one immediate event, my second cancer. One major cancer is scary enough. The second one, though small and supposedly unrelated to the first, opened my eyes wide. These poems are not all “about” cancer, certainly, but they carry with them the sense of things that can go wrong. And also the concentrated beauty of the world when you know for sure that life is limited.
Hence, the Mary Poppins figure, flying over the city with her doctor’s bag. Because if there’s a center of gravity in this collection, it might be the cancer diagnosis. How do things (like cells) avoid going beserk?
There’s another kind of gravity. It’s the way we inflict injuries on ourselves and others. The poem, “Crickets” says, “You’re one of God’s creatures, yet the angels and imps outnumber you by a long shot. They’re out there jumping in and out of your notice like quarks and anti-quarks.” And who is Doctor who keeps the world in balance? It is exuberance, not just of being alive, but of the wondrousness of loons, robins, cats, crickets, and human creatures. There is never a right answer to how to negotiate this life, but there’s radiance everywhere, to light the way.
I’ve put together some questions for a book group. The book should be out in late March or early April. Here’s the thing. I’m too old to traipse all over the country to give readings. I will give some locally and I think when my full-size book comes out next fall, I’ll take some trips, but for now, I’d like to propose this:
1. I’ll drive anywhere that’s only a few hours away. I’ll visit your house or meeting place, read and talk about a few poems, and participate in a book discussion.
2. I’ll set up a Zoom with your book club. I’ll send you some questions to get your discussion started. You don’t have to know anything about poetry. You can add poetry to your repertoire of things you know something about.
3. I will not charge for any meeting, except that I’d like all of you to buy a book (buy it now, at pre-pub price). Actually, I’ll thank you. It helps me a lot to both read aloud and talk about the poems. It helps me as a writer. I need to hear from you.
4. You don’t have to be an official “book club.” Get 4 or 5 people together at your house. Have wine and cheese. Have a book party. Heck, have 10 or 15 people to your house. Have a book PARTY. You can dance afterward.
5. You can Zoom with me when this book comes out in April and still invite me next fall for the larger book, The End of the Clockwork Universe. Carnegie Mellon University Press is already at work on that one. It takes a long time to get a book ready.
Here’s a link to order the book: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/doctor-of-the-world-by-fleda-brown-2024-open-chapbook-winner/
The back of the postcard, with all info you need to order. Use the QR-thingy for more information. Please do order a book. I think you’ll like it. Order now while it’s at the pre-publication price.