How a Poetry Manuscript Becomes a Book

58º ~ nothing but sweet sunshine for days and days to accompany the cooling days of fall, the trees have just begun to turn as the hours of sun diminish, hummingbirds departed about a week ago, it seems

Oh, dear reader, an entire month has lapsed since last I posted. Such is the life of a poet working at the community college level (with extra teaching at the grad level to boot).

Still, my life has not been without poetry work. Much of the last month's poetry time has been spent working with my incredible editor, Tayve Neese, from Trio House Press. Today, I'm thrilled to share the cover of my new book, due out in April 2015.

Each press I've worked with has had a different approach to cover image and design. In this case, Trio House asked me for three possible images. These images would go before the production committee, and if the committee thought any would work, they would choose one. If the committee wanted to take the cover in another direction, they would then find and use their own image. With these instructions, I immediately contacted Carolyn Guinzio, poet and photographer, and asked for permission to put three of her images forward for consideration. Luckily, she said yes, and then the production committee said yes to the above image.

In terms of which of Carolyn's beautiful photographs I might put forth, I knew the following. Given the tone and subject matter of the book, I wanted a cover with reds, browns, burnt oranges, glowing embers, etc. I also wanted something with either a medical feel or a vintage feel. Blood Almanac and The Girlhood Book of Prairie Myths both contain realistic images (that I love) on the covers. This time, I was interested in some abstraction entering the frame.

When Tayve emailed me the finished product this past week, I confess, I cried. I instantly loved the entire vibe of the cover and how the graphic extension of lines across the image reflects the sickly speaker's situation, that of institutionalization. As I saw the cover for the first time, the number of references to the speaker's barred window popped into my head. I cried. I danced. I emailed Tayve back so we could celebrate together.

Many, many thanks to Carolyn for the photo and to Dorinda Wegener, the Managing Editor at Trio House, for helping create such a fantastic cover.

OK, so while the production committee was busy making the outside of the book look fabulous, Tayve and Issa Lewis, an editor at Trio House, were busy with inside edits. They both scrutinized the text, from front matter, to content, to back matter, and then sent me several pages of editorial suggestions. These suggestions were super helpful in making the book consistent, sometimes in terms of how the dash was used, and definitely in terms of how the ampersand was used. (If you've followed the drafting process of these poems in my previous posts, you know the ampersand plays a key role.) Other editorial questions brought out weaknesses in two poems that needed to be improved, for which I was extremely grateful. Sometimes we are too close to the work to see it clearly.

I addressed the edits and came up with some questions of my own. Back and forth we went until we had what we considered the final copy, and by that, I mean, the FINAL copy. This went off to Dorinda for the publication committee to work on. The manuscript needed to be taken from a Word document and put into a publication-ready format. This involved selecting a font, formatting the front and back matter, as well as the table of contents and the acknowledgments. Then, the poems had to be formatted on the page as well and page numbers inserted.

Once all of that work was done, Tayve and I received our first round of galleys, in PDF form. We each spent a week combing through the pages, and lo and behold, I discovered two word changes that needed to be made, again for consistency within the larger narrative of the poems. Luckily, the word changes didn't change much in terms of formatting, and with things being digital these days, they were easy to fix. Tayve and I also talked about such minute details as spacings for indents, consistency of italics, and where we needed to either put in or take out commas. Yes, even after our stamping FINAL on the previous copy, there were still tiny details to address.

At this point, the galleys are back with Dorinda and her team, and Tayve and I should receive another look at the "almost book" form soon. We will go over all the details again, and then, fingers crossed, we will go to press.

As all of this was going on, we were also working to get the blurbs for the back cover together. I send all my thanks to Carol Frost, who selected the sickly speaker as the winner of the Louise Bogan Award, and to Lisa Russ Spaar & Oliver de la Paz for writing such generous words about the book. I'll leave you with a look at the back cover, minus bar code (thus the white rectangle at the bottom). Soon, soon the book will arrive with its own weight to be held in the hands. I can't wait!