This blog and that book

Not that surprisingly -- considering that I am not that active with comments and feedback on the "blogosphere" at large and as such probably haven't encouraged any fellow bloggers to leave comments here, I have absolutely no idea of who lands up here on this blog or why / how.

Call me irreverent or plain politically incorrect but I have a sneaky feeling that many of those who land up here are prospective Father-In-Laws or employers. And I guess "readers" of both these categories either can't make head or tail out of me (which is something I cannot either, most of the time) or get scandalized by the number of times the word "Beer" occurs on this blog, or by the labels and the categories, or whatever and beat a hasty retreat :-)

With due respects to all such readers, what to do I am like this only. And not to worry, I am as middle of the path and stodgily boring as most people my age having to "earn a living", apart from those times when I am indulging in one of my escapades -- road trips, close encounters with nature or pursuits of other things poetic.

Which brings me to the basic reason behind this blogpost. To throw some light on this blog itself. I had started this blog around 2 years back as a precursor to bringing out my book and most of my poems (those written "here and there" across the years and those "written" barely minutes ago) were published here first. To an audience of one. Many of those poems have not been presented in Moving On, for a variety of reasons most of which have forgotten :-)

After the decision to bring out the book happened, this blog hasn't really reflected my muse and pursuits poetic and most of the blogposts normally meander and wander along on topics related to "this and that". Or maybe they do and its just that when I see this blog with a critical eye, I forget to realize that blogs have a life of their own too. And this has grown as it has fancied, taking me along for the ride :-)

And that brings me to my book, "Moving On" which is surprisingly moving on at a fair clip (considering it is poetry and considering that I have done almost nothing to promote it) and also helped me connect with a number of like-minded poetry lovers, with people who have taken the pains to write in with encouraging words.

Come December it will be two years since I brought out Moving On and though I will never know how much the book has suffered due to my inability / disinterest in promoting it, I still feel a kick about bringing it -- a true-blue honest "coming out of the closet" book of poetry -- out.

And somehow (sitting at a cyber cafe at Bhubaneswar after meeting Sri Jayanta Mahapatra and being gifted a copy of "The False Start" by him yesterday) it seems to be the right time to bring out my second book. After all, the idea was to hit top speed with the first book and then keep moving on!