I’m delighted today to be able to announce the release of my first ever book of poems, Very Sad Poetry.   I felt very strongly that there are a great deal of poetry books on happy subjects of love, friendship and the good things in life but very little for the many people who suffer profound sadness, depression, loneliness and even suicidal thoughts due to grief, loss, death, separation and the like.

I often state that I feel to grow as a writer I should try to write in a variety of styles and subjects and not just restrict myself to novels and to be honest by my standards the non-novels sell many times better so I don’t understand why more people don’t do the same.

I guess some of the reasons behind why I wrote this also come down to having read much WW1 poetry which even now, year after year gets thousands of readers to my blog.   Also the very well publicised suicides of people like Robin Williams or great personalities like Stephen Fry who despite having everything one might imagine to bring happiness, somehow can never quite find it.

Another reason why I wanted to write this book is that about 15 years ago I was lucky enough to meet on several occasions a relatively famous poet from Manchester by the name of Carol Batton.  Her book Page Fright is a great read and I’d like to think mine has a similar take on things.  I’m not sure Carol writes much poetry these days but if she sees this then I’d like her to know she was an inspiration.

Longer time readers will be well aware of some of the reasons which inspired me to write such poems though it must be said I haven’t experienced everything in the book!!  I am though very empathic and find it easy to write the poems, whether they are any good is not for me to say.

Below are three of the shorter poems in Very Sad Poetry which give a little idea of what you can expect from the book though there are several much longer poems too.

Black

Black –  technically an absence of colour

Emotionally, a broken heart that bleeds only red

I hope my heart won’t ever feel duller

Otherwise I may end it all and bleed in my bed

Too much

Sometimes you just want someone to stop

To ask how are you?  Is that pain that you’ve got?

A chance to speak, a chance to touch

That’s all that I want, is it really too much?

Fears

If eyes are like the window on a soul

Then what are tears?

A tortured tap on overflow

The manifestation of all my fears

Very Sad Poetry costs only £1.99 and £4.99 electronically and on paperback respectively for UK readers whilst in the USA the price is a comparable $2.99 and $7.50.   The book is priced just at attractively in local websites and stores around the world.

As you can see I have priced the book very competitively as I really want people to read and enjoy the poems and to help raise awareness of the issues in the book and help as many people as possible.    So do feel free to reblog, tweet or run around the block naked waving a flag about Very Sad Poetry!   Do whatever you can to encourage your friendly neighbourhood blogger 🙂

Poetry is a notoriously uncommercial area of literature and if any of you are kind enough to purchase a copy, it would be beyond fantastic if you could leave a hopefully nice review on Amazon or iBooks of wherever on this my first book of poems.    Reviews are so vital to writers.  I can say that last year my best selling book sold almost 1,000 copies but only garnered around 18 reviews which goes to show how valued they are especially when I’m not one of those hard selling author types.

Very Sad Poetry is available from the UK in Kindle format from Amazon here and paperback format here.      American Amazon readers can find the book in Kindle format here and in paperback format here and it is available worldwide on Amazon and other retailers.  As well as being available through Barnes & Noble, Kobo and Nook, you can also get in on the action on your favourite Apple product but purchasing the book on iBooks by clicking below!