A MISCELLANY

It’s Sunday, November 15 now, and the morning has alternated between misty overcast and sunshine. I’ve been pawing through accumulations of paper and memories, thinking it’s time I packed up some books and shipped them home. Travelling by sea they likely won’t arrive in Toronto before I get back there myself in mid-January.

The pawing has brought various bits and pieces to the surface—like this link that my friend Lorri sent me to an image of the lizard I saw on the Bedlam Walls walk: http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=5297 Check it out.

And here’s a quotation I like, found in one of the appendices of the Baxter book on books. It’s from the preface to R.H. Blyth’s How To Read English Poetry, published by Hokuseido Press (intended for Japanese readers and extremely hard to find), and gives Blyth’s reason for writing the book: “I have an idea that the entrance examination to Heaven is a reading aloud of poetry.” I like this so much I think I’ll add it to the bottom of all my letters.

I’ve been meaning to write something about Australian book launches. They have some formality here, and carry a certain weight. It’s customary to have someone celebrate the book’s arrival by speaking about it at some length—not the publisher, but someone with related expertise or a relationship to the book’s concerns who can “place” and laud it. A historian launched Peter Timms’s book about Hobart, the 30th anniversary issue of Island was launched by a politician who has been a subscriber for the 30 years, and Sarah Day’s lovely collection of poems by a local columnist who counts poetry as necessary reading. I’ve felt a real sense of occasion at all the launches I’ve been to here, in the attention paid to the book and the attentiveness of the audience—as if the appearance of a new book is worth marking in the larger world, not simply time for a party with friends.

I remember when Stan Dragland was poetry editor for M&S at home. His comments, introducing each poet at the season’s launch, demonstrated his passion for poetry and the work at hand. They made that evening a real occasion. Beth Follett of Pedlar Press speaks with the same kind of commitment and passion about her authors’ books at her launches, and I consider myself fortunate to have had Drowning Lessons venture into the world under her banner.