… and I am rather pleased with the result.

“Books, books, books!
I had found the secret of a garret room
Piled high with cases in my father’s name;
Piled high, packed large,–where, creeping in and out
Among the giant fossils of my past,
Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs
Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there
At this or that box, pulling through the gap,
In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy,
The first book first. And how I felt it beat
Under my pillow, in the morning’s dark,
An hour before the sun would let me read!
My books!”  

I have loved Elizabeth Barrett Browning for as long as I can remember, but though I loved the idea of a novel in verse I found the idea of actually reading one rather scary.

But a few years ago I spotted a Persephone book in a library sale. I pounced, and I found that it was one of Persephone’s lesser known titles. Lettice Delmer by Susan Miles – a novel in verse. I read it, I loved it, and the verse worked beautifully.

I realised that the verse form is simply another weapon on the novelist’s armoury, and that in the right hands it could be wonderfully, wonderfully effective.

And I have such faith in this poet-novelist ….

*******

Are you spinning? I do hope so!

And I do hope that you are as pleased with your spin book as I am with mine.