Publication pending

Dear Vocal friends. As I am about to catapult this new collection of assorted verse into an unsympathetic marketplace, I thought I would offer it first to my online buddies for review. This, in the hope that you might either (a) persuade me of the error of my intentions or (b) want to review the contents and advise your various followings, online or off, as to its literary merits (or otherwise). In short, advise them whether (or not) they ought to buy it. To me, a bad review is as high a compliment as a good review, perhaps higher. That said, I would hope that reviewers find something of worth in my words.

Publication is scheduled for August 25 2024. I may release the Kindle version before launching it in paperback. I might bring either date forward (or for that matter put it back if something comes up). In short, I am not guaranteeing a publication date.

Why am I doing this? Well, firstly, I am a writer and what is the point in writing if you have no readers. By publishing the book, I may find readers. I may not but I am going to run that risk.

Secondly, I have read the poetic efforts of several friends recently, some deceased, some very much alive. Writing, and in particular writing in a lyrical, rhythmic, rhyming sort of way, is a way of communicating across a multiplicity of boundaries: class, race, nationality, sex, gender identify, sexuality, age... in short, person to person. Most importantly, it allows the dead to commune with the living, for the brief period in which the latter may be alive. This is of fundamental interest to the human race as it allows us to perpetuate our identify as an intelligent species, one that has carved a broad swathe across our world for thousands of years, one that considers itself dominant in our world, in control of our lives. Whether we are or not is another matter. The effect of this communication between the dead and the living is, however, intriguing. It is a subject of fascination to me, as a temporarily living conscious entity, but of no interest to the erstwhile living.

I sometimes wonder if the dead think "who cares?" given that they are no longer part of the community of the living. Then again, if they are dead, they cannot think at all. So to my dead friends I say (in the certain knowledge that they (a) cannot hear and (b) are hardly likely to care, even if they could)...

Thanks for committing your thoughts to paper (electronic storage medium) prior to your demise. It was a selfish but, ultimately, selfless act. By your literary efforts, however unliterary, you established a bridge (albeit one-way) between the dead and the living. You along with Plato and Socrates, Chaucer and Dickens, Mallory and J.K. Rowling, allowed us to have a long-term view of our existence, even though our existence is but transitory.

That said (and if you are still reading at this point you have better staying power than I have) ultimately the reason for me writing and publishing this volume is that

I am writer therefore I write

I self-publish in order to cut out the middle man, save bags of time and effort, and avoid the need to write endless begging letters that are never answered.

Let me repeat. For those of you who are reading are surely in the same camp as am I, and must surely feel the same way I do.

I am writer... therefore I WRITE!

Back to the question of reviews. Please let me know if you would like an advanced copy of my little book of verse and I would be delighted to send you one. My preference would be to email you a PDF but if you prefer another method of getting the thing from me to you, please let me know.

I will not send it to any anonymous avatar. Please provide me with your name and an email address or other method of sending the file. My email address is a gmail.com address and is raymond.g.taylor@

If you can tell me where you might place any review I would be interested to know but will send a review copy in any case, in response to a reasonable request from a named person.

Thank you for bearing with my ramblings and for any interst you may have in my shortly to be published collection of verse:

Will it fall on my head?

Ray