Second-Hand Poetry

A few days ago, I met my friend Martin over lunch to plan a conference (work related, nothing to do with poetry), and on the way back I passed a second-hand bookshop. I went in to find shelves of poetry collections, and I bought (the whole lot for under £10, all in good condition):

Selected Poems – Robert Lowell
Complete Poems – Marianne Moore
Selected Poems – Paul Celan (translated by Michael Hamburger)

And there were other bargains – I am now kicking myself for not buying a hardback first edition (it looked as if it had never been opened) of Orpheus, Don Paterson’s versions of Rilke, for two-thirds of the price of a new paperback.

The guy behind the counter glanced at what I’d handed him and said, “Aye, it doesn’t take long for the good poetry to get snapped up…”

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On an unrelated subject, some interesting thoughts in the comments box of my TS Eliot Prize entry – the last few posts – on how wide-open the gatekeepers of the poetry world leave their doors. On Monday, I plan to pick up on one item from that discussion and make a new post. Today, off work, I need to press on with a poem, which could net me £5,000 if the judges are favourable. Or could lose me £5 or so if they aren’t.