It rained last night
took the dog
for our morning walk
and spotted some creatures
Sunday, 12 May 2013
Friday, 10 May 2013
Today I mended this beautiful old book
THE LAST PASSENGER (1956)
about passenger pigeons in Ohio
by James Ralph Johnson
This is my Mending Mentor
Captain Mastor:
As you may recall
our Mendery was shut down last year
(see posting from December 6, 2011).
However, since then of course
many books have been piling up
needing repairs.
So I'm back in there to help.
This book needed a spine repair:
First I removed the torn spine
Then I cut some headbands
which the original book lacked.
Incidentally, way back when
we 'overbought' our headband
and ended up with this huge
cheese-wheel of headband.
Fortunately, I saved it from
being discarded as it's
something any Mendery uses
everyday.
I weighted down the new spine
with these buckshot filled weights.
Here's how the new headband
blurrily looks.
Next I made the new spine. I could have
gone with either green or gray booktape.
I chose the gray.
(Once I memorably festooned a book
on American slavery in red white and blue
booktape, quite a patriotic sight.)
I glued down the old spine title.
And voila!
The Passenger Pigeon returns to the flock!
Tuesday, 7 May 2013
I love discovering a new writer.
When Larry Smith was out here
he told me about Raymond DeCapite.
I read his book THE LOST KING
and was amazed how smoothly
and poetically he writes. That's
one of my favorite books now.
Unfortunately DeCapite's books
are very hard to find. When
Larry left to return to Ohio
he forgot to bring along his
copy of GO VERY HIGHLY
TRIPPINGLY TO AND FRO.
We just found it inside the
cushion of our chair
(that chair is notorious for
such behavior). However
before I return it to him
this gives me a chance to
read this new book.
Once again I'm in awe
of DeCapite's writing
and it's inspiring me on
in my new project too.
Larry Smith is writing
an essay on DeCapite
(in fact he left some notes
in the book he left behind)
and I'm looking forward
to knowing more about
this King of Cleveland writers.
More about him soon.
Also check out:
http://www.sparklestreet.com/RayDecapite.html
Poet Paul Piper
organized this reading
happening next week.
***
In case you missed this reading
this is what I said:
“This winter I was minding my own business
putting together my next book of poetry,
when I got shanghaied by a dead poet.
I didn’t know anything about Robert Huff at first.
I put aside my manuscript and became a detective.
There’s very little information on Robert Huff.
He taught poetry here at Western for 25 years
from 1964-1990 and there are a lot of people
who knew him. I spoke with friends of his
students, poets and artists and eventually I wrote
a 40 page essay about Huff’s life here in Bellingham.
The irony is, although Huff found someone
who could pick up on his psychic call to be
remembered and written about, I have terrible luck
getting my stories published in magazines.However,
my essay on him can be seen in Special Collections.”
And this is what I read:
Robert Huff, “Rainbow”
My poems, “Bird Taxi” and “The Packard Hatchery”
Knute Skinner, “The Little Boat”
Robert Huff, “Morning”
Friday, 3 May 2013
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