Coastal Currents: poet and artist launch collection

Orbiting, by Richard Evans, also features original illustrations by Hastings artist Ed Boxall.

Richard, of Bolebrook Road, Bexhill, said: "I've been working on this book since leaving university in 2003. These 24 poems have been narrowed down from 150 or 200."

A recognised figure in the local literary scene through his poetry workshops and as judge of various creative writing competitions, Richard's first book, The Zoo Keeper, was published to critical acclaim when he was just 21 and studying on the prestigious UEA writing course.

He said: "I had a bit of an imaginative overload for The Zoo Keeper. It was just a year, but for the next five years I had to discover how I had done it.

"I felt the pressure of having a collection so young.

"There are poems in Orbiting that I wrote five years ago, thought good for six months then didn't like at all for a couple of years before coming back to them.

"In that time there was a lot happening. There's been a really long incubation period."

He contacted Ed Boxall, of Mount Road, after finding his illustration books in the De La Warr Pavilion a couple of years ago. Using twelve poems as a stimulus, Ed, whose books and handmade prints regularly feature in exhibitions, filled a notebook with ideas, sketches, tracings and photocopies before concentrating on certain poems.

Ed said: "Trying to find something that had an interesting relationship to the poetry rather than illustrating it in a straightforward way - that was the challenge.

"Initially you have a brief and if there's a poem about a character walking down a street your inital thing is to have a picture of the character walking down a street, but the poem already says that, so you don't need to do it.

"You want to create something that adds a little, that creates a dialogue between the illustration and the text. I think that's what Richard was after and I think that's much more interesting."

Gradually, the book's tone evolved through the collaborative process, with Richard maintaining it was only after the illustrations were added the collection felt complete.

Certainly his best work to date, Orbiting has been worth waiting for. Richard's voice has matured, grown more considered, and speaks with new authority and concision on love, suffering and loss. He says it took him five years to write because he wanted to develop from his first work; everything about this book, from the poems themselves to the illustrations and the beautiful production, says he has succeeded.

He said: "I think the poems might have a bit more longevity than the first book. If the poems are still interesting to me after a few years then hopefully they'll still be interesting to readers."

Richard and Ed talk more about their collaboration at the Orbiting launch party, on Friday, September 11 at Caf des Arts on Robertson Street, from 6pm-8pm. Ed shows originals of his work between readings, and will talk about the intricacies of illustrating poetry. Folk artist Tim Hoyte provides live music.

For more information on their work, or to order the book, please visit www.richard-evans.org.uk or edboxall.wordpress.com

Love Song

For Sally

I can force my way out of bed.

I can come to see you, your rainy roof.

I can press my eyes open,

the loud dream that tornadoes

around here, shut out for the afternoon.

And I can speak like a flute.

I can hang your breath on the gnats

sewing up a tiny piece of the sky.

Or I can cry a little, to loosen the clay

from your lashes, all this because I love you

in the way poor, sleepy things love.

Inside my body there are marching men

bruising the earth with their boots.

I cannot reveal the things they chant

as the sea can pull back

and show off its earnings '“

but I can press, tenderly,

a star blemish through eyelids

with my lips I can tease out a galaxy.