Colours/Colours
Angela Readman
(Diamond Twig) 2001

Buy Colours/Colors

How’d it happen?
I met Julia Darling within the context of her giving advice on how to run writing workshops, and she asked me if she could see some of my poems. I took her about 6 poems, and she said she liked them, and asked if I had more, and if I would be interested in having a collection out with Diamond Twig. I was familiar with the Diamond Twig books, and had most of the poetry collections they had published on my shelf at home (I just love the small format, and black and white covers.) I then submitted about 35 poems to Diamond Twig, and attended at meeting at Julia’s house were Ellen Pthetheon and Julia and myself discussed the poems, and decided which ones would be suitable for the book (funnily none of the original 6 I sent made it in!) I looked at these poems, did some minor changes, and selected an order. Diamond Twig has lovely intro’s by the poet in their books, so I wrote the intro (which was a lot of fun, and somehow made me feel like a real writer.)

The cover is due to Diamond Twig always having a photo of the poet on the cover of their books, and I took a couple of different possibilities (mostly childhood pictures, as I really didn’t want a recognisable picture of myself on the cover to ruin the book!) Luckily, Julia liked the photo which I favoured most, being the photo of my ear, and the whole process was quite smooth with very little disagreement about poems or content.

Problems?
There was one small problem however with getting published by Diamond Twig, which was that Iron press had already agreed to put 20 of my poems in their book. None of the poems were the same, but the problem was that Pete was planning to bill his book as a book which was publishing all of the writers for the first time. Diamond Twig intended to launch in October, which was before the launch of Unholy Trinity. It was a tricky situation, as I was extremely grateful to Peter for all the work he had done with me, and was thrilled to be published by Iron, but at the same time wanted to take advantage of the opportunity with Diamond Twig. I was left with no option but to go back to Peter, tell him the situation and see what he said. He wasn’t very happy about it, but did understand and didn’t threaten to drop me from Trinity or anything if I was published before the launch of his book. I am really grateful this all worked out OK, as at the time I was really worried about what to do about the situation.

Lesson: about publishers. Writers forget that work can be tied up for a long time once it has been accepted for publication, according to the publishers schedule. Writers don’t think about that, I never did. Usually this won’t effect what you can do with your other work, but if a publisher has plans to bill you as a first timer there may be a problem.

It may seem strange to people to hear then that the work in Unholy Trinity is earlier work than that in Colours, although it was published the following year.

My favourite poem in Colours is: Second Base.

Poems I tend to read are: Woman next door, While you were out

Poems I never read in it are: snow white, snow black

What would I do different?
Colours was never reviewed, as a new writer it didn’t occur to me to ask the publishers about this or suggest places that may be good places for it to be sent. I didn’t want to be a nuisance, so once the book came out I left them alone and didn’t bother them. In retrospect however, I don’t think it would have been so bad for me ask about this, and contact them (having had some reviews for Unholy Trinity, which Peter organised and sent me copies of, I could have let Diamond Twig know which people had given me a good review, so that they could send them Colours.) There has to be a balance, where the writer doesn’t pester the publisher too much, but most publishers won’t mind one or two follow up communications to them, particularly if you have information they may not have about people who may be willing to review their book.

Marram

That’s his name. Dunno why
they call him that.
He’s got Al Pacino eyes, Ree-bok top,
Puma trainers. He’s a hunk.
He’s a fox, dead lush.

Well, that’s what everyone says.
So that’s why I let him.
He’s a catch,
A gold soverign ring
on cold hands, burning my skin.

Angela Readman (Colours/Colors)