I mentioned Roddy Lumsden’s Third Wish Wasted collection the other day, mainly to do with the cover, and since then I’ve read the first 20 pages or so. I’ve really being enjoying it so far. I also read this profile of Roddy in the Scotsman newspaper, of which more soon (particularly on the “However, Lumsden is concerned at the dearth of emerging Scottish poets…” bit!).
Today I had planned to read more of the book, but…it’s gone, disappeared. I can’t find it anywhere. I had been reading it in a café on Saturday, but I’m sure I didn’t leave it there. Could it have fallen out my bag without me knowing? Could my daughter have taken it to read to her dolls (a game of hers) and then hidden it in her room somewhere? Could I have absent-mindedly shoved it into the bread-bin? I hope it turns up soon.
I can't complain too much. At a charity shop I picked up Frank O'Hara's Selected Poems for £1.50 and Robert Lowell's Life Studies - a first printing, 1959 American edition, for 99p.
Anyway, I now move to the next book on my list – DA Powell’s ‘Chronic’ and Colin Donati’s 2002 pamphlet ‘Rock is Water’ – his new stuff, by the way, is terrific, if his reading at the Great Grog last week is anything to go by.
