B-Sides

By David Chislett

Poetry happens, just like life, when you are making plans. The poems of B-Sides were written in the ten years between 'For You Or Someone Like You' and 'With All Of You.'

My previous two collections have been time-related projects… one launched on Facebook, and one on Patreon. 'B-Sides' is completely the opposite. It is a selection of all the poems I wrote in between those two projects. The everyday poetry that gets stashed in the bottom draw and almost forgotten. The words tracking a changing life, an evolving perspective. As such it is thematically and stylistically more diverse whilst remaining recognisably my voice.

The idea for the title was born in conversation with Jason Curtis, who suggested the play on words from 'Besides' to 'B-Sides' as a way of grouping such a diverse collection. Just as bands used to always have a quirky, less commercial B-side to every single released, this is another side of my writing. Or rather, this is the face of my writing outside of well-defined projects! I'll let you decide which is the 'real' voice… whatever that may mean.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Chislett
• Release date: Nov 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215567029

Book preview

PREFACE

Poetry is one of the most constant presences in my life. I started writing in about 1980 and I have never really stopped. It’s not really about why I wrote poetry, but why I can’t seem to NOT write poetry.

This book collects some of the everyday writing that I have done over the last few years, loosely between 2014 and 2022. There is no uniting theme, but I think you will detect 4 recurring themes in the book. Have fun spotting them!

I am not sure how incarnations each of the poems here has had. During the compilation of this collection, they were all edited and updated… and I cannot remember how much editing I had done in the past

Many thanks to Julian Kievit and Jason Curtis for their suggestions and corrections in the editing process… Any errors that remain are mine alone!

Continuing to publish poetry is now just part of what I do. This will not be the last volume. I still write and share on Patreon, but more importantly, I still write and perform wherever and whenever I can.

Poetry is an important part of how I process the world I live in and deal with what I experience.