Images of Underword

So, it's not quite been officially announced, though it may have been by the time you are reading this, but I have a new poetry collection out from Lapwing Publications at the end of this year. It's called Underword and, as has become the way with my poetry books, my photographic art work will be gracing its front cover. 

As you will know if you've read my previous post about choosing images for a book cover, The Submerged Sea - Cover Art , I end up rejecting a number of perfectly good images in order to choose one that works with the theme of the collection and the size, shape and design of the cover. I always feel sad for the images I reject along the way, as well as excited by the one that makes the final cut.

I'm therefore going to use this blog to tell you about the theme of the collection that I am trying to evoke, share the runners up for Underword's cover image and unveil the successful image.

To begin with an explanation - this is the blurb for Underword: 

In an age where we can talk about anything, we remain reticent about death. It is an integral, complex, unavoidable part of life, the one guaranteed thing all of us will experience, but it remains our final taboo. 

Underword is a poetry collection that is not afraid to examine death from many angles and viewpoints. Loosely following the narrative flow of the story of Orpheus, the poems of Underword explore life, dying, death, mourning, moving on, hell and the afterlife, hope, disintegration and despair, and endings. Death is as limitless and as limiting as life. Its stories are many.

Consider this a sneak preview, because in many ways it is. Here is the image that will be on the cover of Underword when it emerges out of the dark and into the light at the tail end of 2022.

And finally...

Underword, a poetry collection by J.S.Watts will be published by Lapwing Publications in winter 2022