I'm delighted to announce the publication by Clock & Rose Press of Wiley Clements' first book of poetry, Yesterday, or Long Ago.


This is also our first venture into publishing poetry; we have specialized in reprints of rare books and original editions of scholarly work up to this point.

Wiley's book is a handsome, hardbound volume with line illustrations by Jeanette Sloan Campbell and dust jacket photographs taken by the author himself. I am responsible for the editing, book design, and typography. We couldn't be more pleased with the result.
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http://www.robtward.com/images%20to%...t%20crunch.jpg
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Many of the poems will be familiar to Wiley's fellow 'spherians, and the book includes a section of poems written in collaboration with our own Jim Hayes. The book is available in two editions; a hardcover trade edition, and a hardcover limited edition that is signed by the author and comes in a protective slip cover. The book is listed with Amazon, and may also be ordered directly from us by emailing renee@clockandrose.com ; this is our preferred form of distribution, as we don't have to give the middleman a cut.

Congratulations, Wiley! All your hard work has finally come to fruition!

(robt)

Congratulations! Very nice.

Question: Do people with poetry books out get to quit their day jobs and stay home and collect royalties? http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/smile.gif

This is a big deal for Wiley and for Clock and Rose. My congratulations to the poet and the press.

Congratulations! Way to go!

The cover looks beautiful!

This is wonderful news on more than one front -- a beautiful book of beautiful poetry. Congratulations to everyone involved.
Richard

Many congratulations to all.
I'm looking forward to receiving my copy.
Best wishes,
David

Warmest congratulations. Terrific team.

I will ask my local library to order it. That would broaden the poetry section.

Robert, can you post the relevant information? ISBN number etc.

Janet

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited July 14, 2004).]

I am over-flattered and under-qualified to be a part of this wonderful venture but notwithstanding, I am highly delighted to be associated with such a fine poet.

Congratulations Wiley, Robert and all others connected.

Jim

Thank you all very much for these generous remarks. I only hope the book's content, or some of it, rises to meet your expectations.


G/W

The look of it is lovely, Mr. Clements. Congratulations!

Congratulations to all involved! I look forward to reading these poems.

Jeff

I squinted and read "First Light"; quite lovely! congrats to all involved. Dee

Wow! The cover is spectacular, and I look forward to reading your poems, Wiley! Hearty congratulations!

Bear, fabulous design, lettering, and art! Totally impressive.

Terese

Thanks, Jennifer, Jeff, Dee and Terese:

I am greatly pleased with the way Robt managed two of my shots of the Susquehanna for the jacket. The background scene is of the river above the Lewisburg bridge. The framed inset shows some of our older houses as seen from the bridge. In the center, the simple house of beige stone dates from c. 1734, while the white one at right is nearly as old and now belongs to the chairman of the Bucknell Univ. English faculty, who is also book reviewer for our local daily paper. The spire at left is that of the First Baptist Church where Robert Lowry, author and composer of "Shall We Gather at the River" was pastor for many years. Inside the book Jeanette Campbell has made a line drawing of about the same scene to illustrate my sonnet: "At the River," which was inspired by Lowry's hymn.

All your kind comments are much appreciated.

G/W

Congratulations -- it looks beautiful!

Sally

The ISBN# is 1593860242 - but Amazon's telling me it's not available yet. Robt, get that wonderful image thumbnailed on Amazon. Congratulations to Wiley - the commentary on the book is great.

Frank

I have now carefully read through Yesterday, or Long Ago, and I cannot commend it highly enough to our members. Understand this is Wiley Clements, and you will be stepping back into a sequence of lyrics which celebrate traditional values, redolant at times of magnolias, poems which employ inversion and the subjunctive with equal ease. You will be struck by how many of these verses were workshopped rather recently at the Deep End. Like David Anthony or Oliver Murray, Wiley has plunged back into verse after a long hiatus. The winged chariot is hurrying nearer Wiley than those young (!) poets. I occasionally have the sense that some of the newest poems were committed to flesh out this large book with undue haste. But 35 years his junior, I have world enough and time. The overwhelming sense of the book, though, reflects Dick Davis' comment on Cavafy at Alicia's Cavafyesque thread at Mastery, where Dick talks about the sweetest poetic sensibility among modern masters. Wiley's book can be infinitely hard-nosed, but it evokes with heart-rending accuracy a civility whose passing he laments in the high, elegiac fashion this lifelong student of poetry has made his own.

Gracious, Tim! What a generous appraisal. I had to go look through the book again to see whether I could find any of those qualities you attribute to it. I did find six occurrences of the subjunctive mood: 5 be's and a were. No actual magnolias, though.

You are right that a couple of the smaller pieces were dashed off at the last moment without time for proper maturation. Robt and I wanted to get the book ready in time for him to take a copy to West Chester. Several other of the poems were written earlier this year, but the great majority go much farther back, as much as fifty years.

If Clock and Rose Press had a subscription salesman with your descriptive gifts, they might hope to break even on this book.

Many thanks...

Wiley

Wiley,

You got more subjunctives than that. I know you do. Don't argue. Let us now praise subjunctive men, dude.

Break even? 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be pursued... But we are not counting on it.

Bask in the glory old man, and work on the "Collected"...

(robt)

Alan, Tim, Mike Juster, Paul Lake, and Sam are all members of the West Chester Gun and Couplet Club, but we are also all members of The Committee to Preserve the Subjunctive, an august body into which Wiley has just been inducted.

Wow, things have been hopping. You ever sleep, Robt ?

Wonderful news, Wiley, congratulations !

Not lately, Wendy; but soon...

R.

Would that Wiley were to go on writing!

Many congrats--and though I haven't seen
the text (except through reading some
previous Spherean activity), the cover
is very nice.

Bravo!

"Not lately, Wendy; but soon..."


Let me know if you need a sleeping spell. It works every time with my kids, and is very simple to administer. I simply say, would you like to hear a poem I'm working on ?

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

One of my neighbors here in Urbana is the poet's daughter. I have had the privilege of reading her copy of Yesterday or Long Ago, and I have asked her to obtain a copy for my poetry bookshelf. It is a treasure trove of elegant poems which, in my opinion, will be read and enjoyed for generations to come.

My neighbor has also directed my attention to this amazing poetry website, the existence of which I was previously unaware.

Chris

Actually, Len, you saw the book on the train to West Chester, one of the first to do so, and you even read a couple of the poems... But I imagine affairs of greater import have occupied your memory in the interim.

(robt)

Edited out the references to the Sphere from my comment above, and posted it as a review at Amazon. I urge other members to review the book there and at BN.com

Sorry, Robert, and I certainly
meant no disrespect to Wiley.
It's just that my brain has
become more prone to senior
moments than it used to be!

My copy has just arrived and although I have just skimmed I wanted to rush to encourage everyone to buy this magnificent book.

The first thing I did was laugh at Wiley's amazingly odd view of the world and the shrewd humour and then I admired the elegance and strength of the writing and then I appreciated the absolute just-rightess of the design and page layout which facilitates the poems and makes the entire experience an exceptional one.

Then I read some other poems which combine gravitas and beauty but are never heavy.

This is a rare treat. I don't say that lightly. The poetry works on many levels and I wish other publishers would study Robert's handling of line space and general spacing and flow of contents.

10 out of 10.

Janet

Wow. Does this mean I done good? I have had my doubts, frankly, but it's probably a forest-and-trees thing... So many little, niggling errata and miscues keep popping up. We're correcting 'em as we go.

Thanks, Janet.

(robt)