POETRY WORLD. A misty labyrinth or bog. Everyone enters with their own backpack. Full of statues, avatars, devotees, aspirants, ephebes, smurfs also... you hear a voice seemingly from afar but it could be right around that steaming shrub... there are moldering inscriptions and new roadsigns; the chatty overly-chummy guide beside you suddenly disappears into quicksand...

I go to the P.O. Gary the postman asks advice on finding a translation of Lermontov published in the 70s that Nabokov recommended once. Whenever I go there he's got a new anecdote from his reading in Russian literature. In my mailbox there's a new book from Manuel Brito & his Zasterle Press in the Canary Islands: "Bouma Shapes" by Steve McCaffery. Have never met Manuel, but imagine he looks like the younger brother of Federico Garcia Lorca. We trade books. It's nice to trade books with someone in the Canary Islands!!