Subject: Blue Glazed Eyes Date: 12/09/2006 14:23:33 GMT

Dear Tony

Many thanks for sending me your first book of poems. You are clearly serious about this most difficult of art forms and I admire the ingenuity which you've put into distributing your work.

But really, what you want is a readership. And you will only obtain that by following the rules of the poetry game, which (roughly speaking) are as follows:

1) Build up a following in the specialist poetry magazines, by getting at least 6-8 individual poems published; then

2) Use that platform to procure a specialist poetry publisher, who will print and market your work themselves.

That won't bring you fame or riches, but it will bring you to the attention of the British poetry community much more successfully than your efforts so far.

What can we do to help? Well, we have professional published poets on our staff who can read your work, tell you if it is strong enough to start submitting to the magazines and give you lots of detailed advice and direction on how to go about publication. We do charge for this service of course - normally £130 for up to 15 poems, but we could arrange something else if you wanted to send us a larger body of work.

As I say, you have clearly invested masses of effort in your current projects, but I'm positive that it would help you to direct yourself to the more conventional outlets which currently exist.

All the best - and good luck, whatever you decide to do.

Harry Bingham