Poetry Doesn't Make Money

Of course, I know poetry doesn't make money. The buzz with a poem is, as either Coleridge or Wordsworth said , "getting the right words in the right order".
However, looking up my new book on Amazon, I noticed that my collection The Copyright of Land ,which sold at £5 when it was published ten years ago ,is now out of print and is changing hands on Amazon for £20 a copy. A shame I only have my reading copy left.

Of course, poetry is ephemera to a book seller and that's where the money is, not in the poetry but the rarity. Poetry has small print runs ,usually no more than 200),so a first edition can have value. Seeing my book listed at four times its original price was a good boost, especially as I now have a box of The Earth Singing to sell.

THE EARTH SINGING

It is always exciting and a little frightening to see your new book. Will there be errors,is everything as it shold be,am I happy with it? So much time and effort goes into putting a collection together and getting the title right.Then eventually, after all the proofs,the long wait to publication ,the books arrive in a box. An anti-climax really. They are in your front room and you have to get them into the bookshops and into the hands of the reader.

Back from four and a half days at Ty Newydd with my batteies re-charged having met some interesting people, heard some stunning poems, been on some fantastic walks, eaten delicious food and had a Cadwalladers' ice cream. And now I'm back to reality-the dirty oven,kitchen surfaces needing a clean, a fridge to defrost, washing tumbling out of the linen basket. And in the garden a jungle of growth-how can things go to seed in only four and a half days? Those days that went so quickly when I was away seem to have gone slowly here to create this amount of chaos.