Welcome!
Welcome to my website. I like the alliteration of that.
I want this website to be about poetry and the joy of language, though I can’t promise that I won’t diverge into interesting bypaths along the way. I’m originally British, though I have lived in Maine for twenty-two years now. My spelling is still British so no complaints about that please. I occasionally change it if I’m submitting to an American journal, because it gets tiresome to continually explain it otherwise, but this is my site and things will be spelled my way.
For ten years I was the Education Advisor for Penguin Books in the UK, and another of my former occupations was the moderator of the talk forums and contributor of research for the British TV show QI (stands for Quite Interesting, nothing to do with Chinese energy). If you are in the USA and unable to see it on the television, you can find episodes on YouTube if you search on QI and episodes. Searching QI on its own will lead you straight down the rabbit hole of Chinese energy. On the QI forum we had a thread called The Meaning of Liff, which takes its name from a book by John Lloyd (the onlie begetter of QI) and Douglas Adams in which they use the names of villages and towns to create words for things that ought to have words to describe them but don’t. One of the ones we came up with was doffcock, which is a word that means a divergence from the intended path of a discussion into something more interesting that came up along the way. This paragraph is an example of doffcocking.
Back to poetry.
I have the honour to be the current president of the Maine Poets Society as well as a member of the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, so there will be links to those organizations here somewhere… when I’ve worked out how to do it…
This is my first book. There will be another one day…
In poems of fine clarity and craft, Jenny Doughty explores both personal and mythic history…Among the fruit of Doughty’s wide travels, both within and without, are a sharp-eyed wisdom and rich emotional subtlety, and her poems exploring life events–a child’s birth, a beloved’s death–achieve and profound and moving beauty.
– Betsy Sholl, Maine Poet Laureate 2006-2011
Contact Jenny Doughty to purchase a copy
…and so it is that my new book As For The Rose will be published by Main Street Rag in 2026.
BUT! The price when pre-ordered from the MSR Online Bookstore is $8.50 (plus tax and shipping). The book is scheduled for release in early 2026. The advance discount price is temporary, and only available directly from the publisher.
https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/as-for-the-rose-jenny-doughty/
Check out the sample poems on that link!
If you prefer to pay by check, the cost is fixed at $12.50/book which includes tax and shipping.
This prices are for advance orders only. It doesn’t mean the book will be shipped early. It only allows buyers to receive a discount for ordering before the book goes to press, but this price will only last for a limited time, so ORDER NOW!
To order an advanced copy by mail, send an order form and a check payable to Main Street Rag to Main Street Rag Enterprises LLC
at 12180 Skyview Drive, Edinboro, PA 16412
Book Title: AS FOR THE ROSE
Buyer’s Name: Mailing Address:
Preorder Price: Number of copies:
Total Amount Enclosed:
Jenny Doughty, Poet 