After seven long years, I have now changed the layout of Lyrics / Flor & Blancheflor. It was first published on the Mythic Poetry site late in December 2010 (and during the following months). In October 2011 on Virta zine's 8th issue there were many of the collection's poems in print. The Chapter I Strindberg, Hölderlin & Celan was also published in the anthroposophical culture magazine Takoja in three parts (issues 3/12, 4/12 and 2/13), each with an essay dealing with some of the main themes. In 2013 most of the remaining poems were published in Virta zine's issue 9, first in digital form (January), and later in print (June). Early versions of Chapter IV and V were published in Virta zine's issue 3 already in 2004. Chapter III was released in 2000, as "the story that was not sung" and the lyrics of Pathways & The Flowery March. Only the Letters in May fragments (in Chapters II and VI) did not appear in print before.........
A friend mentioned the Lulu self-publishing company, and in autumn 2013 Lyrics / Flor & Blancheflor finally saw the light of day as a traditional printed book. I held a little party at my home in October (for a few beautiful guests and old friends, who played a part in it one way or the other). For a year I didn't touch the book at all. It would have been easy, but the themes and the lines had already been ground and roasted so well, that there was no point in going on for ever like that. However, in September 2014 I added a cursive font and a quote or two (for the first and the last poems), not really changing the letters, only their tone and surroundings. I tried to make the photos work for the poems, but I failed in the layout itself. And in the end of 2014, the book was approved for global distribution, which was an important milestone, but unfortunately the price was terrible. I could not affect this at all. And as the layout was a kind of (dis)aster, there was no way for the book to have what it needed. The good thing was that Lyrics / Flor & Blancheflor had some visibility, theoretically speaking, at least.
When the time came for me to take up this work again, I really tried to get it done right. The bad thing was, I had to quit all the distribution channels and let the old version go. But the good thing is the book now has the best layout it ever had. A few minor changes were made into the text (of The Beautiful Chorus, taken from a note book written in 2014, and old brackets for the Black Wine, too) to honour "the tradition". The price is decent once again. For a book with 112 pages in colour, to pay 20 euros (plus the infernal postage, of course) is not so bad. I would like to see some reviews after all these years, even though the collection is old in today's standards. But it is "mythic poetry", for Christ's sake, is it not?