Every poet has a drawerful of rejection letters.
The poems in Roughly Speaking by Eddie Gibbons have for many years — some since as long ago as 1980 — lived in the shadows of their siblings who went on to have wildly exciting lives in Eddie's published poetry collections.
Roughly Speaking is Eddie Gibbons' fifth volume of poetry and contains both new and rejected poems. Though some of the works included in Roughly Speaking have had brief moments of infamy in poetry magazines the majority have never seen the bright light of public acceptance, their prime achievement to date being the collection of rejection slips.
To keep these overlooked orphans company there is a small band of brand new poems ― although the readers will have to make up their minds which is which.
WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT HIM:
“This particular selection would not be a good fit for our coming edition.”
The OFI Press
“ Unfortunately, we will not be accepting your work this time.”
Ink, Sweat & Tears
“However, we do not feel the work is quite right for the magazine.”
Atrium
“Eddie's boundless capacity for forging a funny and poignant poetic language from common speech makes everyday things shine.”
Seán Bradley
“Eddie can be formally elegant, devastatingly iconoclastic, and is a master of everything he puts his pen to.”
Anna Crowe
“None of the work you sent is suitable for our magazine.”
Obsessed With Pipework
“Eddie's poems should be on the national curriculum.”
Kirsty Gunn
* * *
Eddie Gibbons was born in Huyton, Liverpool. He moved to Scotland in 1981. His first collection Stations of the Heart was published in 1999, when he was fifty.
In 2008, he was a prize winner in the inaugural Edwin Morgan International Poetry Competition. His fifth collection, What They Say About You, was shortlisted for the Scottish Poetry Book of the Year award, 2011.
A regional judge for the Faber / Ottakars National Poetry Competition, Eddie has been a guest reader at the Berlin British Council, Stanza International Poetry Festival, Dundee Literary Festival, Aberdeen University's WORD festival, and the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
