AWOL

I’ve been AWOL for a couple of weeks, a bit longer. Some writing, some reading, at the out-of-season seaside. This may be a way of training CBe, and myself, to understand that, entangled though we are, occasionally varying the distance, or the perspective, may be no bad thing; that there is no reason why our needs should always coincide; that neither of us is indispensable.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Nick Lezard has featured BB Brahic’s translation of Apollinaire in his Guardian books column. (The above picture, showing a sequence of Apollinaire and a friend made at a photobooth in Paris in August 1914, is on the CBe page where you can order the book; other photos of Apollinaire have just gone up on Wayne Burrows’ fine Serendipity Project site.) And Beverley Bie Brahic’s own collection of poems, White Sheets, due from CBe in June, has been chosen as a PBS Recommendation for the Summer quarter. And planning for next September’s poetry book fair has been humming along. And it’s become important that a new CBe title, fiction this time, Dai Vaughan’s Sister of the artist, is published now rather than later. More on that next week.

When the Guardian asked me for the cover image of the Apollinaire book to go with the review, they addressed their email ‘Dear Charles and team’. As if. But it’s still possible to get in my own way, or have days or even longer when I’m not on speaking terms. Back now.