The Itinerant Poetry Library

Since May 2006, The Itinerant Poetry Librarian has been travelling the world with a library of ‘Lost & Forgotten’ poetry, installing the library & librarian and archiving the sounds, poems and poetry of the cities, peoples and countries she meets. Welcome to the project's blog . . . Our Itinerant Poetry Librarian lives wherever her library is - come join the cause!

FAQs: • Yes we carry our entire life and the library with us as we go • Yes, it is quite heavy • No, we're not mad. As Charles Simic said, 'But what if poets are not crazy?' That's the spirit boyo!

We exist to: remind people of the importance of free public libraries...subvert mainstream channels of distribution...remind people that access to knowledge should be free and not dependent upon economic wealth hierarchies... show people that poetry/art can provide answers to questions we ask of life...experiment in existing outside of 'the market' – thereby, instead, investing in social capital, social innovation and community.

We aim to make life taste better. Word.

Where have we been . . . ?

(2006) Amsterdam, Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Munich, Paris, Barcelona, London, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Norwich, York, Antwerp, (2007-2008) San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, Leipzig, (2009) Ulm, Chemnitz, Rotterdam, Huntingdon, Callander, (2010) Cork, St. Andrews . . . Where'd you like us to go? Can you help? Get in touch!

What We Are Up To Right Now . . .

Archive

Wednesday, 9 August 2006

Bye bye BCN

Well, we just finished our final Barcelona Poetry Library installation, at the wonderful Hibernian bookshop, which brings us to a total of 15 library members for Spain, not a bad total considering how much we got messed around by the first few places we wanted to install the library in. So, all things works out in the end - this is one BIG lesson we learned here in BCN, and we’re grateful. Thanks for the sun, sweat and lazy, ambling time. We also got interviewed by Barcelona’s very own english language newspaper, BCN Week, which will be out soon . . . and we just tried to upload our photos for today but this internet cafe is not playing the blogger pop-up window game very well, so you’ll just have to wait to see what we got up to today. And now we gotta run to squeeze the books into our rucksack, swap our sweaty suit for some travelling gear and hop on a train the hell outta here to Amsterdam, via Paris. So, one picture which did somehow manage to get through the stuck ether is our current library total. Although, it just got bumped up by one as we were packing up at Hibernian, so actually we are on 133 EU members, not 132, but we’ll sort* this out in the next couple of days and upload the rest of the pictures and more news when we find a more stable home than a railway carriage. Vale. Hasta Luego BCN . . . Amsterdam here we come! Venga! *sorted in Amsterdam 14.08.2006

Library members! Yeah!

Monday August 7, 2006 15.30 PM




Just before we set up Monday’s library . . .



. . . take a look at yesterday’s fun. And six new members takes us up to 125 signed-up personas! Go Barcelona go!





Where our library was yesterday . . .





Open at Frank’s





All Frank’s books





Our library selection for the day





Our librarian in situ





Yes. It’s Frank





The ladies at Frank’s place





The writing on Frank’s wall





A Spanish miaow





A Barcelona window ledge





And finally . . . our first offensive hairstyle of a new member. She got BANNED!

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