Technically, I have been easing my way into this book for the last couple of weeks, but today marks my first full day of actively working on it. So, what have I done with it?

Having made my initial selection of poems for the next book, and having decided on more prominent visuals to accompany the poems, today I began the task of looking through my photo library for possibilities.

It’s slow going so far—my Lightroom library alone has 5,232 photos, and my iPhoto libraries contain a little over 20,000. Even taking into account the inevitable duplication among (and within) libraries, that still leaves a lot of photos to look at.

At present, I have 120 poems selected for this collection, sorted into five broad categories: Formalities, Oddities, Secrets, Delicates, and Do-overs. Formalities will include my explorations of poetic form; Oddities will consist of experiments and other odd bits; Secrets will explore things hidden and/or not expressed; Delicates will cover feelings and small moments; and Do-overs will have new versions of a few poems that I feel I didn’t get right the first time. So, needless to say, this first task could take a few days.

Of course, as I write more poems along the way, the number and mix of poems will change. In the meantime, I have lots of browsing to do.

(1 April 2016)