REALITY STREET

Hazy morning in Hastings Old Town; emails ping into my inbox. Tony Frazer has sent me the proofs of my next Shearsman book - Songbook - which collects lyrical poems as well as scores of textmusic pieces done with Elaine around 10 years ago. After lying around undisturbed all this time, they will suddenly be published this October. And Fanny Howe has sent me the ms of her next Reality Street book, set for next year, also short poems, and most excellent ones too. Hooray. And an email from Emily Critchley about a possible follow-up to Out of Everywhere. I had wondered whether the historical moment for an anthology of left-field poetry by women had passed, but Emily believes it has not, and that there remains a gender imbalance, particularly in the UK, and that there's a lot of exciting work that isn't being given its due, and she's convinced me. So I am contemplating another anthology - heaven help me, another anthology - for Reality Street in 2012. That would be 16 years after Out of Everywhere. This is crazy: time is passing much too fast. Elsewhere in the blur of the past 24 hours, I have agreed with the esteemed flying Dutchman Johan de Wit that Reality Street will publish his anti-narrative Gero Nimo in 2011 (more news soon). And another recent addition, not yet on the RS website, will be Head of a Man, a poetic narrative by John Gilmore, a Canadian writer. And The Moors are adding more dates to their schedule: the Bohemia Village Fayre in St Leonards on Saturday 18 July and the Hastings Beach Concert on Sunday 2 August, maybe the Stag in July, plus we're doing some proper recording within the next couple of weeks, for a demo CD and downloadable tracks for the website. And meanwhile, I'm busy writing short stories, and trying to get the climbing plants in the garden to bloody well climb (come on, how much more support do they need, it's up to them now), and making a list of things to mend, and contemplating bass guitar practice, and whether it's worth bothering to watch England make a hash of another Twenty20 world cup game (and whether Twenty20 really means anything anyway), and I forgot we're going to Spain to visit my aunt Maribel....