timeless simplicity / carousel swans

it's the last of the sunny september days. this evening, clouds will move in, and bring 5 days of rain. i am snowed under in work, but now took (spent? / gave? / worthwhiled? ) half an hour of time to enjoy the sun, while it is still there. the books that accompanied me were: Osiris 70 - a collection of multilingual contemporary poetry, which arrived with suprise mail (big thanks marcia!). and the other book is: Timeless Simplicity by John Lane.

i came across the book this week, when i stopped by at a new book shop, which is called “Book Carousel”, and has used books, a lot of them rather new, published in the last 1-3 years. they sell them at half price, and take them back at quarter prize after you read them, if you want to resell. it’s a friendly, airy place - they don’t have many english books, though. but i found this one, which feels like it waited there. it's from Green Books, and indie publisher in the UK. see, that's another thing that Daily s-Press brought: i now am as curious about the publishers as about the authors.

reading in Timeless Simplicity, i returned to a quote from Daniela Elza, from the recent daily author talk, on poetry and materialism: "I see freedom in poetry because we all own the materials it is made of, and it provides a spiritual self sufficiency which materialism does not like, since it wants you to be dependent on it. I think when we are emotionally in tact we need less stuff." (-link)

which now leads to the other moment i want to write about: today i learned that my poem "Society of Swans", which appeared in YB in May, is nominated for the Sundress Best of Net Award. there also is a commentary, with a line from Virgina Woolf on emptiness and rich apparel.

& more poetry and words: the BluePrintReview nominations for Sundress are up in the blueprint blog. again, this isn't about money. and even though awards are competetive by natur, for me this is more about revisiting, and appreciating. it also fits the season: celebrating the harvest that will bring us through the dark and cold of winter.

now, back to some complex work, and then on to some simple mowing of grass, before the rain starts to fall.

afterthought: i start to fall for this word: worthwhile. it's the perfect merging of "worth" + "while". hadn't noticed that before.