National Poetry Month Celebration (Pt. 5): Staples

Five or six years ago, I left the United States to travel. When I left, I took next to nothing with me, packing my bags as if I were fleeing the premises of a burning building. These are the only books that made the melodramatic cut into my tiny carry-on, three poetry anthologies: A Book of Luminous Things, a collection of "short, clear, readable, and...realistic" poems selected by Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz, primarily from Chinese and 20th-century American and European poets; Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West, a rich series of mystic poetry translated and selected by Daniel Ladinsky; and The Holy Bible (King James Version)--mainly, of course, the books of Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiasties, and Song of Solomon. They remain the three books that I consider to be absolute staples, as necessary travel (and living) companions as my toothbrush and water bottle.

It is with these recommendations that I conclude this celebration of National Poetry Month, for they capture perfectly the immediate, raw spirit of the art form, showcasing its consistent ability to illuminate both the frailty and strength of the human spirit.

Last Chance to Own VP0005

VP afficionados will already be aware of an upcoming poetry collection known as The Dead Snail Diaries, catalogue number VP0012, hopefully with us before Spring has passed.  However, you may not be so familiar with the book pictured to the right - VP0005 - and you should get to know it quick, because it will soon become a piece of Valley Press history.

In 2009, after completing the first ten poems of the 'Snail Sequence', I produced a series of hand-made booklets (fifty copies in total), fully illustrated, on thick cream paper, bound in lovely brown card - a labour of love, though I did this mainly so I'd have something snail-related to sell when I tested these poems out on the road.  With the finished collection due, it occurs to me that the window for selling these copies is about to pass - so with this in mind, I have put the remaining copies on eBay, so that readers of the blog (if indeed you are out there) can 'buy it now' for an highly reasonable price of £4.  I'll be sending these out myself, so if you put in a request (i.e. 'please made this out to Josie') in the 'comments' box when you pay, I'll be happy to personalise them.

I can guarantee that no further copies of this edition will ever be printed, and you can't get hold of it anywhere else - it doesn't even have an ISBN number!  So if you've got £4 to spare, this could be an interesting way to relieve yourself of that amount.  Note: if for some reason you don't like eBay, but you still want a copy, drop me a line and we'll sort out something more old-fashioned.

Thanks for your time!  - J.M.

Dust Covers

I love books. I love reading, the total immersion of adventure, fantasy, thriller, firecracker action scenes and literary excellence. However, I also love the acquisition of books and I love hoarding these little treasures of my own. I very rarely go a month without buying a book, meaning my personal collection is quite impressive and wide-ranging.

In spite of this, though, my reading pace has slowed a little as I've grown. Pesky obstacles like jobs, essays and people have severed the white cord of time quite disproportionately, so that when, in the twilight time still reserved for reading, I can barely keep my eyes open past a few pages. I read as much as I can in the days off from this and that but essentially I have dozens of books on my selves, in the garage and at my Mum's that have never been read. A total crime!

So what I wanted to do with this post was to invite a little discussion. Here's a list of the top ten books I already own but still need to read. I encourage you to leave your own examples in the comments section; first of all because you might be inspired to go on and read those books but mainly because I might not feel so lazy if you do!

1. A Clockwork Orange - A. Burgess
2. A Farewell To Arms - E. Hemingway
3. The House Of The Spirits - I. Allende
4. Through The Looking Glass - L. Carroll
5. A Portrait of The Artist... - J. Joyce
6. The Diary Of A Young Girl - A. Frank
7. The Social Contract - J.J. Rousseau
8. The Finkler Question - H. Jacobson
9. Metamorphoses - Ovid
10. The Great Shark Hunt - H. S. Thompson

Just a short one today, then. Hope you enjoyed my list and/or found some little stimulation amongst those titles. I certainly did. I'm going to redouble my reading efforts on Hilary Mantel's Booker-prize winning Wolf Hall and get ploughing through that delightful lot asap!

Happy weekend.