On deconstruction

At first glance, it's a lovely problem to have. What to keep and what to call it?

I have fifty-eight pages of poetry that I'm happy to put my name on and two possible collection titles that don't keep me up at night. The summer has given me that. The collection has grown from a scant twenty-eight pages in January (those lovely days spent in the corn crib at VCCA) to this veritable stack at the tail end of July. The problem is that I would quite like to be published with some chapbook publishers who want a twenty page collection...or twenty-four or twenty-eight.

It's daunting. The full collection is like a complete skeleton. If I cut off the shins, the thigh dangles and the foot is obsolete. If the full skeleton is a man called Roger, and I decapitate him and graft on Jessie's spine and left hand, who is he/she? Can I still call him Roger?

I want to submit to the Camber Press chapbook competiton (guidelines state twenty-four pages). They're great in that they care more about thematic direction than number of pages, but having said that, the page count will still stand. So I have a stack of twenty or so poems that I really like. Now all I need to do is to discover who this pile of bones might have been and in what order I need to pin them together so it might walk.

Because it as sure as hell isn't Roger anymore.