... another Saturday visit to the Artist Books section of the local library. The librarian lugs a large cardboard box containing new arrivals & so I get first dibs on what's just come in. Plenty of finds including this catalogue including work by usual suspects such as Joanna Drucker but also several artists (all women) new to me ...

... checking the stats & I see that the previous bread shop post is getting hundreds of hits (maybe I should take out shares) ...

... general relief over here at Wednesday's result (OK, OK Obama isn't perfect but given the alternative ... ) ...

... assuming the US continues safe in terms of political climate & hurricanes, we're beginning to plan a visit scheduled for next Easter (land in Washington to stay a few days & then on to The Big Apple). If anyone has any advice in terms of hotels, areas to stay, must-see exhibitions etc. please keep me posted as we go into the New Year.

I vividly remember our last visit (my only) some fifteen years ago - the dream-like experience of entering Borders - still disoriented by the flight - & seeing title after title on the Poetry shelves by all the names I worshipped. Indeed, the Land of Plenty. ...

... something of a celebration in our road as the Commune blocks plans for the house next door to be converted into three apartments. At the hearing, there's the rather bizarre situation of the developers speaking only Flemish and the Planning Committee only French. (It explains how poor decision-making goes on in this country.) Thankfully, K. speaks both languages & so acts as an impromptu translator - much to the chagrin of the developers who must have hoped they could smuggle all sorts of contraventions in. So - as we say in English - yah boo sucks to them. ...

... tomorrow, my presentation on teaching poetry as part of an In-Service Day. Quite a few colleagues seem to have signed up for what has been mistakenly entitled Poetry - A Trick Genre. God knows who came up with that - certainly not me. I've pulled together extracts from the likes of Gizzi, Duncan, Creeley etc. - by way of insisting on poetry's fundamental resistance to orthodoxy and importance way beyond the confines of syllabuses and examinations. I'll let you know what transpires. ...