A meeting of two minds
Although I was born in the UK and my mother tongue is English I was born of Maltese parentage. In Maltese there is an expression which loosely translates as The first that eats is the eye. When I decided to put together Old & UnWise – A Haphazard Collection of Poetry and Thought I knew that I wanted a dynamic image on the front cover., something that would not only catch people’s attention but also draw their curiosity.
There was a talented young poet from Ghana who had caught my attention, not only for his poetry but also for the interesting artwork that he was posting. I had crossed paths with Jude Ansah (IG handle @poetjla) several times on Instagram lives and had struck up a friendship with him so it was only natural that I approached him with the idea of designing the cover for the book.
After several discussions we decided to go with a face showing both the Old and the UnWise aspects of my character. That meant entertaining Jude with some dubious photos but he added a touch of magic and came up with the front cover design that has already come up with some rave comments even though the book will only be released next month. Once the front cover was done I left it in Jude’s hands to come up with something for the back cover and I think he really excelled. I cannot be happier with the overall design of the cover and I hope that anyone who purchases the book feels that the poetry matches Jude’s work
A few words about Jude: He is 28 and began his journey as a writer in 2014 while still attending high school, writing a poem for submission to the school magazine. After graduation, poetry became a hobby of his as he went on to write numerous pieces which ended up being published on his poetry blog “Poet JLA” on WordPress, which has over 146 poems since 2015. He has also performed some of his pieces at events such as “Poetry for The Rainmakers” and the Ashesi University Storytellers Club Event “Cafeteria Takeover”. He is also in the process of putting together his own anthology very soon. As the cover clearly shows Jude’s other interests include graphic design and creating digital art.
Stephen Buttigieg - Words 