Firstly, it is to recognise grass roots poets, who, whilst they might have been published in various places, may never win prizes or have awards bestowed on them. This is not because they don't have the potential to win competitions or to be honoured in some way; far from it, they have plenty of talent and, more's the point, the combination of their skills in one book runs the gamut of what poetry can offer the world.
The second and perhaps most important purpose of this book, evolved from a discussion amongst us on what we should do with the profits from its sale. It didn't take long for us unanimously to agree that donating them to charity was what we wanted to do. It doesn't take much philosophical debate to recognise that the future of the earth is dependant on our children and so this international group of authors agreed that all profits from the sale of the book should be donated to that international charity, the United Nations Children's Fund, better known as UNICEF.
Here are some details: -
Title: "Petrichor Rising"
Type: Anthology of poetry
Publisher: Aquillrelle
Format: Paperback and eBook
No. Pages: 120
Links:
Publisher: http://www.aquillrelle.com/authorgrass.htm
[ If you don't want to buy the book, that's ok, we understand. You can still make a donation to UNICEF via the fundraising page, which can be found at: http://fundraise.unicef.org.uk/MyPage/GRPG-Petrichor-Rising ]
Prologue:
"Petrichor Rising takes you on a journey that exposes you to the full spectrum of emotions, from barely concealed despair to hope, from love to sorrow, with a clear appreciation of nature’s value and humanity’s shortcomings. It rides a roller-coaster that moves you to consider many of life’s challenges from a different perspective, as all good poetry should. It is at once haunting, yet shocking, with aching nostalgia alongside enchanting stories about dragons. It gives you optimism and hope tinged with shadows of doubt. It writes about places never seen and humanity’s uncaring nature, in prosodic social commentaries and observations of the minutest details of life, mood, atmosphere and romance. It contains clever writing that brings you close to the edge of society, still capable of moving you, but not pulling any punches. It has poetry with a universal appeal covering subjects as varied as the loss of a cat or a harrowing account of the 7/7 London bombings, poetry that focuses on the roots of all that makes us respond to life and long for something better."
I hope you will feel something in your heart that supports the course, if not of grass roots poets, then of children ... and that sounds awfully like emotional bribery, but it isn't intended that way ... honest ;)
