I have sold out of my book 'In this Grey Wind', so I decided to print a second edition. Fortunately I had a few sheets of Diana Wilbraham's paper 'blue' left for the covers and I was able to make an new edition of ten.
My book uses extracted text from 'Birds of the Grey Wind' by E A Armstrong, published in 1940. Armstrong wrote a beautiful account of his life spent bird watching in his native Northern Ireland. He describes the landscapes he visits, the knowledge he gleans from his hobby starting as a child, as well as wonderful descriptions of the birds he sees and their habitats.
As I read the book, I picked out certain words or part sentences to form phrases or poems of my own. I wanted to create a series of poems that, when read as a whole, would form a narrative. Armstrong's writing was so beautifully written that I felt compelled to write a love story; one that would perhaps leave the reader thinking about both the relationships between humans and those between birds.
At times it was hard to focus on extracting the text because the book was so absorbing. However, I did finish it and then set about selecting and ordering my poems before printing them out, folding, cutting and binding them.
I hope to make more extracted text narratives from non-fiction and fictional books.
