I am so proud to say that my third collection, A Light Goes On, has been released today, exclusively on Amazon. This is the culmination of a trilogy that has taken me from the depths of despair to a crack in an Unreconciled Door, where some light has now become visible.
Thanks to all of you for reading and listening along to my first two collections and I really hope you enjoy A Light Goes On, which book ends this period of my writing and of my life.
I cannot begin to explain the leap of faith that it takes me to share all of this with the world so thank you for backing up my instincts in doing just that.
This week on Behind the Lines, the opener of this new collection is the subject matter.
“Or Nearest Offer” is the first of forty poems and it’s title came to me when I thought about old classified ads which would state that such and such an item was for sale for £$ xxx O.N.O. (Or Nearest Offer). I also liked the way the phrase sounded and could be construed as “Oh, No!”.
My editor tells me that this poem is the first in the third collection as it starts a prologue of disillusionment and dejection- a Shakespearean setting of tone. She is probably right.
The work is also a handy way of introducing the themes of mental health in an unusual way, and in particular, “Fear” and “Loneliness”. I had in my head that these two emotions were not to be seen on a high-end high street, a Paris Boutique or a Rodeo Drive.
No, these emotions would only be found, by those who went searching, in a thrift store,on a sidelined side street in a city that had long gone south.
In fashion terms, these feelings would be “velour velvet shirts”-functional to wear- but not something you would share with the outside world ,if given the choice.
These emotions, that I was feeling at the time of writing the piece, were “unwanted, understated and unfashionable”.
Fear is the oldest human emotion, evolved from encountering the beast on stepping outside of the cave. The beast would be dinner or you would be. This flight or fight reflex has lived on in us, but it may be not be the most helpful emotion and may start to malfunction. The threat level triggered when , there is in fact , no mortal threat, can lead to panic and exhaustion.
Humans are social animals and to say that you are lonely is putting your hand up to being perceived as defective in some way, with selectivity of company not instantly quantifiable in a very one dimensional, social media driven world and therefore frowned upon.
The second hand, vintage, pay by kilo or charity stores of the mind are over stocked with all of these messy emotions. Better to up-cycle them, wear them with pride or turn them into something shared and beautiful.
Algo.
P.S. No prizes for guessing where the title for the third collection came from.
A Light Goes On is available to order now in Kindle format on Amazon for just $€£ 0.99
If you like and if you can, having being delighted by this daily dose of dissonance, maybe Buy Me a Coffee please ,or even better, order A Light Goes On, so you can read along with Behind the Lines.
My second collection, Unreconciled Doors, is the subject of Season 2 of the Algo Poetry-Behind the Lines podcast-follow it on your favourite podcast provider to listen along.
Algo Poetry-Behind the Lines 