The spoken word: Something That Comes Close
- Dougie
- Mar 28
- 2 min read
A few weeks ago, 11th March to be exact, I published a debut collection of poems. The book is called Something That Comes Close. I wrote the poems. My partner Spike created the illustrations for the start of each section of the book.
Apart from this blog (which can be a bit intermittent at times) the book is my first foray into publishing original work of this type. I was a bit uncertain about the whole idea, at first. But when I began to write posts in this blog more regularly, I told myself ... Here's the deal, Dougie: if you've taken the time to write it, if you think it's readable-enough to post on a blog, you let people know.
Cue my social media feeds.
If folk see something I write, read it and like it, we have what you could call a non-zero-sum game. If folk don't like it, they'll just not come back to read more. Commonly known as "life".
To put the whole dilemma of angst-ridden Dougie's ... should I / shouldn't I write, publish and share ... into the context of the real world, I asked ChatGPT to crunch some numbers. That took about a nanosecond.
Even using the largest view response figures to a single blog post on my site (950 for a post about Glasgow) I do understand that most people in the world have no idea that me or my blog exist. I'm very comfortable with that fact. The largest proportion of people (out of the whole world's population) who've viewed the same post by me is so tiny, so insignificant that ChatGPT had to use scientific notation to describe it:
1.1875×10−7
1.875 times 10 to the power minus 7
I'm fine with that too.
Anyway, I published my book. Friends and connections have been supportive and encouraging. We've sold some books. Readers like it. I am very happy about all of that.
Then, this greeted me yesterday.
Words (almost) fail me. I could not be happier.
My friend Trevor (Artistic Co-Director of the Bright Umbrella Theatre Company in Belfast) received my book in the mail then sent back this message: Trevor reading the title poem of the book, Something That Comes Close. I am as happy as the proverbial ...
Something That Comes Close is the debut work of Scottish-born writer Dougie Herd, now living in Australia. Reflections on becoming, on the joy of simple things, on life's hopeful journey. Sometimes sad because life sometimes is. But never despairing or despondent. Cos life's too short.
Pulse: memory, life and death, loss, dislocation.
Place: here and there, then and now, home and somewhere else.
Encounters: the unexpected.
Foolish Things: some of which are not entirely pointless.
Waving: the possibility of renewal, the necessity of change, the inevitability of silence.
Words by Dougie Herd. Illustrations by Spike Deane.
Buy your paperback copy at Amazon Books.
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