I will over-indulge myself by saying a few words, firstly anticipating the suggestion that I might do better as a cover designer or wildlife photographer. I'm very happy with the wrapping but it ought to be about the poems.
The title is, of course, ironic, being the title of a poem about how a book can be imagined to be perfect, which is answered by its counterpart, The Flawed Book, about the novel once it was written, which is the last poem here. The attentive critic or reader will notice that a number of the poems come in pairs, like the centre page spread consisting of The Summer Game, about cricket, and The Winter Game, about National Hunt horse racing.
Three poems at the beginning are in memoriam for one who departed the life she had led with such panache four years ago now, a theme that is reprised towards the end.
If poetry is often advised to avoid cliché and Donald Davie wrote about re-making it, several of these poems deliberately embrace it while the epigraph suggests that lyricism might still be possible in poetry that does its best to avoid bad practice and as much of the advice that is on offer as it can. While self-consciously aware of their status as artificial language, these poems are more autobiographical than perhaps some of the earlier ones were allowed to be, which is not to say that a few aren't outright fictions
I need to correct an earlier announcement that the book will be 'launched' at the Portsmouth Poetry Society meeting of April 18th. It no longer will as a prior appointment has been re-instated but I hope a good number will still attend the meeting to hear John Dean read from his new book.