As some of you know, at the end of May 2021 my debut poetry chapbook Art of Insomnia was published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press, a matter of great importance to me, especially as it was dedicated to and largely inspired by my beloved wife Helen, whose unexpected death broke my heart exactly one week before Easter 2019.
I was grateful that the book resonated with so many readers and, as it proved more popular than I had expected, the matter of printing additional copies had to be considered.
By this time I was working on further chapbook ideas and preparing for a larger collection but decided, before going ahead with a further print run, to look at the poems afresh to ensure I was entirely happy with them.
Thankfully, I found that most of them conveyed their messages exactly as I wanted those messages to go out and I was content to leave those. However, I was disappointed to discover from a tweet I saw by chance on Twitter that one of the twenty two poems contained a word often used to mean the opposite of its actual meaning, and that’s an error I had made.
No one had brought this error to my attention, and I may have got away with it, but knowing that a reprint was in the offing made me look critically at the whole manuscript. As a result, I found four other minor matters which, if changed, might improve the work. Thankfully, my publisher agreed to all five changes which have been incorporated in the reprint currently available for purchase. This is the link for purchase – Art of Insomnia
I do have mixed feelings about all this.
On the one hand I am delighted that the copies now available at Scottish Poetry Library, and at a number of libraries local to me, contain these revisals. Similarly, this will be true for copies now being placed with independent book shops and those I take with me to poetry gigs in 2022 and beyond.
However, there’s a fair number of folk who have the original version, without the small changes to five poems, so I do feel it necessary to publicise the changes as widely as I can.
Coming up in Part 2 of this blog – ‘Art of Insomnia’ Revised for Reprint (Part 2) – you’ll find details of the five changes and the reasons for them, so I hope that lots of those who have purchased the original chapbook will find this helpful.
Further, all members of The Hedgehog Poetry Press’s ‘Cult of the Spiny Hog’ will be able to download an updated digital copy of the book free of charge.
I have also alerted followers on Facebook and Twitter to the changes, and will now link them to this blog (parts 1 and 2)
Finally, I am about to send out to those purchasers for whom I hold addresses a bookmark which contains details of the changes on its reverse.
By this means I hope to get the information out to anyone who may be interested.
If you already have a revised reprint, this blog and -link- will probably be of less significance, unless you have an academic interest in the rarity of a post-publication editing process.
To find out details of the changes, and view the five poems in their changed form, go to – ‘Art of Insomnia’ Revised for Reprint (Part 2)
If you haven’t purchased Art of Insomnia but this blog or its Part 2 –‘Art of Insomnia’ Revised for Reprint (Part 2) – has sparked your interest, this is the purchase link you require – Art of Insomnia
Peter/A/Writer 