...or not.
That would be the question if it made much difference.
The Perfect Book is 20 poems now all set up in a document to send to the printers and I could hit the vaguely defined deadline of October 17th, four years since The Perfect Murder, if I wanted to.
Many of the poems were filed, and put here, in the knowledge that they might not be finished and could need further attention. I've been pleasantly surprised by how relatively easily I've convinced myself that I've improved them recently.
I've re-read The Perfect Murder, admittedly towards the end of long, hard nights of wine appreciation, and like it very much and so from time to time I go through The Perfect Book wondering if it's as much to my taste- I'm not going to say it's 'any good' - because ultimately it is only my taste that matters these days on my own poems. And maybe it is. Nothing stays in if it's not justified by something that seems worth having.
But two more poems I want to include aren't even written yet. The Flawed Book, in answer to the title poem, and Letters to the Editor. Poems that are hard come by are usually nowhere near as good as those that come as naturally as birds to a tree. They look 'worked', or they do to me, and so aren't as satisfactory.
So it looks like Plan A. Wait and wait, do a bigger booklet for once. Don't run to the printers just to see what a new book will look like. It might still be Oct 2019.
Meanwhile, I've been through the website, ticking off which poems have already been on here, to see which I can send out to a magazine, genuinely and honestly never aired anywhere before. It doesn't leave many.