Purely gratuitous

No reason except that the sad energy of The Specials rings in the bones rather nicely tonight.

I see that one of the Pussy Riot girls is out but two remain in jail.

Galley proofs of  the US edition of Bad Machine arrived by attachment from Sheep Meadow.

Discussed the next stage of the Respond / Reply project* (the link is to the open blog part, the actual work went on at a restricted link behind the scenes, but this link has a couple of poems in draft) with artists Caroline Wright, Helen Rousseau and Phyllida Barlow that produced a good number of the poems in Bad Machine. Several months of work, all compiled, needs editing, needs book form. We have the ingredients and the recipe, now we need to present a nice fat cake.

Met Caroline in favourite bar to talk this over. Then met PhD student. Ordered one Jamesons and a coffee. As student and I were talking poetry, post-post-colonialism and tidalectics, another glass of whiskey appeared, compliments of the house. Brendan Kennelly, that outstanding Irish poet, has a table dedicated to him in a cafe in a street just off Grafton Street. That is the ideal to aim at. György Petri the equally excellent Hungarian poet has a whole restaurant dedicated to him in Budapest. A rather good small restaurant. Petri is dead. That is not part of the ideal to be aimed at.

Then a very long time waiting for a bus. Waiting for buses should be a Zen occupation. But it can be more more a blend of Lenny Bruce and Franz Kafka.