The Itinerant Poetry Librarian: Sounds

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.

Tuesday, 3 October 2006

Sounds

This is the sound of now. Now we have been listening to the sound of underwater. It sounds like a sound we have never heard. It sounds like a sound we heard before we were born.

Underwater sound

We have also been watching sounds. It sounds like we are under the spell of sound, right? You may be right. We are under spells. Or possibly dreams. We have nets to cast. Things drift. We like flotsam. See some sounds here (you’ll need to open the file in Quicktime or some such suchness)

We also wrote a poem with water in our head. It came out and then Jose Saramago chipped in, as we were reading one of his books in the middle of writing the poem. Skin? Water? Water? Skin? Same thing?

The B in the Water