Gather ye Poesies

Terry Pratchett has invented a most marvellous entity call L-Space. Its properties are magical and of course textual.

Even big collections of ordinary books distort space and time, as can readily be proved by anyone who has been around a really old-fashioned second-hand bookshop, one of those that has more staircases than storeys and those rows of shelves that end in little doors that are surely too small for a full sized human to enter. (from Discworld Companion)

I found myself reflecting upon this construction when I came upon Susan Drodge's review of several books of poetry (Canadian Literature 165 (2000) pp. 122-125). I had come there looking for commentary on Mary di Michelle's Debriefing the Rose and found, among other offerings, a peak at the poetry of Liliane Welch from Dream Museum (Sono Nis Press) and the following lines from the poem "Afternoon at Namurs"

She was still young,
in her late twenties
when she put on weight.
Did she simply open
the doors of her mind
to the melodies of cakes?

What a lovely question. I can now dream of petits fours and madeleines... and imagine that I am opening my mind

And so for day 737
19.12.2008