[Elle Bruno]

Congrats Michael!
Well done. Elle

[John Riley]

Congratulations, Michael.

[David Anthony]

I tried to order it from Amazon UK but the link does not work.

[Tim Murphy]

David, two nations divided by a common retailer.

[Alex Pepple]

Originally Posted by David Anthony

I tried to order it from Amazon UK but the link does not work.

David - Amazon UK and the EU sites are slower to update their database. Once they do, the link will work.

...Alex

[Michael Cantor]

Again, thank you all for the good words and the encouragement - I hope the book lives up to the cover illustration.

I would also like to echo something Aaron mentioned on his site, and thank Alex, and others he worked with (I know that Julie Sih, for one, was involved, and very helpful) for a terrific job of proofreading and correcting - tightening the manuscript by catching and eliminating numerous inconsistencies and outright oversights and errors.

The manuscript was a proofreader's nightmare because of the nature of the poems and the ground covered. I wander through spelling errors and missing diacritical marks in English, Japanese, French, Portugese and Spanish, plus some invented and/or delberately ungrammatical language; there is a good deal of dialogue or internal monologue involved, and I used italics - or quote marks - or a bizarre mixture of both - to guide the reader; foreign and American place names and film references are sprinkled throughout; there is no "standard" and absolute English spelling for some of the Japanese words I used; I interwove two or even three threads of action and counterpoint in the same poem (in one case with haiku stanzas simultaneously alternating with nonce iambics); and all of this was very dependent on fonts and indentations and punctuation and other "guidepost" tricks to keep the reader on track and the poem flowing.

The problems were that my handling of the guideposts and the various title and foreign names was (a) careless and inconsistent at times within individual poems, and (b) much more inconsistent from poem-to-poem. The poems were written over a number of years, and I was writing poem-by-poem, not thinking in terms of a manuscript. And as long as I was publishing one poem at a time it more or less worked. However, once everything was assembled into a manuscript, one poem played (or didn't play) against another, and the lack of a consistent template was potentially very confusing and distracting. I didn't notice this because I knew what I was saying (and because Im a bit of a slob.) But Alex and the other proofers did, and their diligence made this a much tighter and better book. I learned some important lessons in the assembling and checking of this manuscript. My thanks to all.

[David Anthony]

Originally Posted by Alex Pepple

David - Amazon UK and the EU sites are slower to update their database. Once they do, the link will work.

...Alex

Even so I managed to order the Kindle version by going to Amazon UK and searching for Michael Cantor.

[Mary Meriam]

Thrilled for you, Michael. Major congrats!!!!!

[Alex Pepple]

Originally Posted by David Anthony

Even so I managed to order the Kindle version by going to Amazon UK and searching for Michael Cantor.

David - Yes, to the Kindle. Those propagate faster into Amazonia because they're fully Amazon-controlled. The hardcopy come from external publishers and distributors, hence the longer lead time for it to show up in some of the Amazon shops, especially, in Amazon sites in a different country from that of the publisher/distributor.

Cheers,
...Alex

[Rick Mullin]

Mine seemed like it was delivered overnight. It was probably a two-day turn around, however.

Michael--what an accomplishment! I'm really enjoying reading these poems as you have them arranged. Congrats.

RM