The Itinerant Poetry Library, a guerilla public library service, reaching the parts other libraries have yet to reach: 14 countries, 41 cities, 200 locations!
Happy #nationalpoetryday! And for those of you IN (or who can get2) NORWICH…we’ll be iterating over to NR2 for (belated) celebration! Come Join Before We Travel On! 05.10.25, 2-4pm. 16 Newmarket St., Norwich, NR2 2DW. Library Theme for the Day? PLAY! Map: bit.ly/library-05-10-25
ALT Image of The Itinerant Poetry Librarian standing in front of an Orange coloured wall, holding up a magazine from the Library's collection. The signs "Open" and "Library & Archive" are attached to the wall next to the Librarian.
Happy National Poetry Day dear Valued Patrons of the Library (VPLs) and also you Non Valued Patrons who are yet to meet us! Back in Autumn 2006, in a bathhouse in Antwerp, where we were operating in our first year of being, we lent out “The Heart of the Ancient Balcony”...
ALT Colophon page of Glyn Pursglove's "The Heart of the Ancient Balcony", published by Writers Forum 1977
ALT Front cover design (geometric shapes in black and white) of Glyn Pursglove's "The Heart of the Ancient Balcony"
ALT Preparatory note following the colophon page of "The Heart of the Ancient Balcony"
and the borrower became recalcitrant, never returning this item to us (yes, we’re talking about you, Xavier Roelens, our first ever entrant to The Library Wall of Shame!). Time and the universe being what it is, we are delighted to announce that after much searching this item...
has come back into our collection, so in celebration of #NPD we are announcing this as our latest Library Acquisition, and look forward to sending it out into your Valued Patron hands when we next open (hint: coming to a street in London near you soon!) #NationalPoetryDay
Valued Patrons! We are off! We are headed 2b embedded in the Netherlandish ASAP: since news reached us of #PIFR VPLs pining for Itinerant Poetry Library services we're gunna guerilla our way about Rotterdam town, got a spot u want us2operate at? Get in touch! @leeszaalwest#TIPL
ALT Image of The Itinerant Poetry Librarian on a boat on the water, with text on image announcing "Library Arrives Rotterdam ASAP!".
Come Get Your Library On! We're delighted to be opening up @britishlibrary this Friday (Oct 13), for their @eventsBL Steampunk Lates event. We'll have a special selection of Itinerant Poetry Library tomes: Come Join B4 We Travel On! #TIPL
Details here: blogs.bl.uk/digital-scholars…
"It is difficult to speak of the night.
It is the other time. Not
an absence of day.
But where there are no flowers
to turn away into.
There is only this dark
and the familiar place of my body.
And the voice calling out
of me for love."
poetryfoundation.org/poetrym…
Dear Valued Patrons of the Library (VPLs) in Münster! We apologise4 taking so bloomin' long2 let u know "which other cities we've bumped off the membership rankings!" as 1 of u so eloquently requested (cough @evi_heinz cough) when we operated within your delightful environs...
ALT The Itinerant Poetry Librarian operating in Münster: The Librarian is sat in front of the Itinerant Poetry Library, with her "office" open, and that day's library selection of books on offer, including: W.S. Burroughs, Peter Finch, T.S. Eliot, Partisan Review, Bob Cobbing, "New Poems 1966" and Ciaran Carson.
Official figures as of 12.07.23 (as reported in Japanese Economic Newspaper):
1st! Retaining their library crown is Rotterdam (NL): 563 members signed up!
2nd! San Francisco (USA): 388 mbrs
3rd! London (UK): 307 mbrs
4th! Leipzig (DE): 105 mbrs
5th! Portland, OR (USA): 89 mbrs
Who has Münster "bumped"? TIPL spreadsht says: Officially signed up 23 new VPLs during this particular German sojourn, which means you've only gone & knocked Callander (20 mbrs, Scotland, UK); Valçea (21 mbrs, RO); & Washington DC (11 mbrs, USA) down the chart! Ka-Boom! ⚡ #tipl
The info-seeking occurring in library forms carries with it the potential of freedom: the interactions of librarian & patron ‘a state of being manifest in action,’ that is, ‘a freedom which is not an attribute of the will but an accessory of doing & acting’ #LibrariesChangeLives
... and the reasons why alternative options have been rejected. We cannot perform that role without the right information at the right time".
A reminder also why the libraries of both Houses play a critical role impartially supporting MPs/peers in their parliamentary duties.
Happy #NationalPoetryDay Valued Patrons 🙂 Here's a selection of NEW ACQUISITIONS recently added to The Library, donated/found in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Norwich & London of late... looking fwd2 getting them out of the stacks & into yr Valued Patron hands ASAP 😃 #TIPL@PoetryDayUK
ALT Image of book cover of Thom Gunn, "Jack Straw's Castle".
ALT Image of book cover of Richard Brautigan's, "Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork".
ALT Image of book cover of H.D.s, "End to Torment: A memoir of Ezra Pound".
RIP Eric Carle. Here again, the 5 Laws:
1. Books are for eating.
2. Every eater their book.
3. Every book its eater.
4. Save the time of the eater.
5. A library is a very hungry caterpillar.🐛
Yr poetry is strong Amsterdam! It's been AMAZING but sadly tis time to travel on, we are now officially CLOSED but u hav nearly doubld 2008 member #s & r now on 44 VPLs fro this wk's @stichtingperdu@boekiewoekie & #SHARP2022 library openings: Boom! 🔥🔥🔥 😁 #TIPL@SHARPorgNews
ALT The Itinerant Poetry Librarian holding The Library "CLOSED" sign
Delighted to sign you up as a new Valued Patron of the Library (VPL) & look fwd to providing Itinerant Poetry Library services to you somewhere, somehow again! #tipl#SHARP2022