Inside My Hat and Other Heads

By Alun Buffry, Ariadne Snail, Melissa Doordaughter

Have you ever considered reading poetry and then thought what have poems to do with the real world? Inside the covers of this book are real life poems from real life poets.So what is a poet? Just a human, that isn't only being but also saying and doing. OK, so what is a poem? Just words telling a story in a short rhyming or otherwise burst, words and images from inside our heads. Hope springs eternal and visions will spring from the pages herein.Includes works by Alun Buffry, Ariadne Snail AKA Melissa Doordaughter, Jacqui Malkin, Phil Monk, Rocky van de Benderskum, Sarah Dougan AKA Sarah Sativa, Steve Cook and Winston Matthews.

The book's premise is deliberately down-to-earth: poetry as something produced by ordinary people living, thinking, observing and reacting to the world around them. Its publisher description characterises the contents as "real life poems from real life poets," with poems understood as short bursts of words and images coming from inside people's heads.

So the title Inside My Hat and Other Heads seems to play on getting inside different people's minds. "My Hat" also connects particularly with Alun Buffry, whose other writing includes All About My Hat: The Hippy Trail 1972. Buffry's own publishing site describes Inside My Hat and Other Heads simply as a collection "by various poets."
What it seems to be about

There isn't a single narrative running through the book. Instead, the unifying idea appears to be what goes on inside people's heads: memories, observations, emotions, personal philosophy, humour, altered perspectives and reactions to everyday life. That makes the title fairly literal-one person's "hat/head" opens onto a collection of other heads and other ways of seeing.

One recurring strand in Buffry's wider writing is looking inward. His autobiographical work talks explicitly about finding peace by directing attention inward, while some of his poetry plays with the idea that imagination can transport a person anywhere "inside your head." That background makes the title's emphasis on interior experience particularly meaningful rather than just a pun.

There is also a strong countercultural flavour around the writers and publisher.

Buffry appears to be the central figure connecting the project. His bibliography ranges from poetry and memoir to political writing, travel writing and science fiction. His 1972 overland journey to India later became All About My Hat: The Hippy Trail 1972, and he repeatedly uses "Myhat" as a literary persona or device.

That's important for understanding Inside My Hat. The hat isn't merely headwear in Buffry's writing. He turns it into a viewpoint.

That's probably the most interesting key to the anthology's title.

There are recordings associated with the collection too. A YouTube playlist indexed in search results includes Melissa Doordaughter reading one of her poems from Inside My Hat and Other Heads, which reinforces the impression that these pieces were meant to work as voices being heard, not merely poems studied silently on a page.

Buffry's own verse elsewhere is characteristically plain-speaking and conversational. His publishing site reproduces poems that move quickly between mundane details, jokes, travel, imagination and philosophical reflection. That doesn't establish that every contributor writes similarly, but it gives a useful sense of the literary world surrounding the anthology.

Why the book is interesting

I think its main interest is less "Is this an important canonical poetry anthology?" and more the community represented by it. It's a document of a particular circle of writers and artists-people connected through alternative culture, activism, travel, spirituality, friendship and creative expression.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1916310702
• ISBN13: 9781916310704
• Release Date: November 2019
• Publisher: Abefree Publishing
• Length: 184 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"