Lovely lunch yesterday (day or so in London)to mark a few months of mentoring, tutoring, by poet David Grubb. Id taken him a bottle to say thank you, and he treated me to a lovely lunch in the restaurant at the South Bank centre, overlooking the Thames. Wonderful bottle of Sancerre, I felt proper tiddly. Lunch lasted from 12.00 until 3.30, and we had such a good natter -
He also presented me with a book and DVD set, brilliant! Bloodaxe's In Person, 30 Poets. Just out, coupla months back. You read, AND listen... it is my own interactive Poetry Festival!!!
(for a taster of this fabulous book’s DVD, follow THIS LINK and click on the link for the You tube thingummy)
You will see and hear five poets reading from 'IN PERSON'
filmed by Pamela Robertson-Pearce
DVD-book edited by Neil Astley
Benjamin Zephania
Imtiaz Dharker
Brendan Kennelly
Jackie Kay
C K Williams
. . .
Then the 'come-down':
Got home just now, to find a copy of 'How Poets Work' bought from Amazon second hand, at £35.00. (ahem. It's meant to be very good) I wouldn't mind, but what they didn't say when describing its condition, was that inside it is clearly stamped "WITHDRAWN FROM STOCK", and the frst few pages are torn out. (This is 'excellent condition, apparently)
And to add insult to injury, 50p was pencilled inside, where the front pages containing the library register form thingy had been removed.
So Richmond Books, who I bought it from, have lost a customer.
Nemmind. Im sure it's very good....
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3 comments:
re the misdescribed book, it seems to me that you have grounds to complain. When I buy a second-hand book through Amazon (or abebooks.co.uk), I expect it to substantially as described, especially at that price. On the other hand, I wouldn't worry about the "50p" - if you had been at the relevant library on the right day you could have had the book for 50p, but you weren't.
Depending on the condition of the rest of the book, you may have had a reasonable bargain. AbeBooks lists one copy at £40 and two at £75 and none of them sound perfect.
Sorry Vanessa, this comment has got rather out of hand; you are welcome to delete it and I won't be offended.
It was the 50p that got me... so easily rubbed out. It was like they were thumbing their noses!
having said that, the first essay is bloody good. Maybe not £35.00 worth good, but there you go!
Ooh, that Bloodaxe DVD sounds great - some friends of mine were just telling me about Spoken Word poetry in the US, and they have some book+DVD thingy. They showed me a TV programme of one of these Spoken Word events, it was amazing! Bit like a poetry slam, without the slamming. Very cool.
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