BUY POETRY BOOKS AND GIVE PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA A STIMULUS SPENDING GIFT!

It was fun...and moving...to see two of my regular haunts serve as local voting precincts in St. Helena: the public library and the United Methodist Church. No long lines (behind the wine tourist trappings, St. Helena is a town of 5,000+ after all) but very nice to see small town politicking at work (and quite interesting to my still New York City mindset). The Methodists, smart activists that they are (remember this, our blog-based fundraiser?), also chose the opportunity to encourage voters to bring donations for the local food pantry which, like many food pantries across the nation, is hurting in resources even as they face rising need. So, sure, I brought a shopping bag of food over, but I also decided to do some stimulus spending as a gift to the new President who's going to have to wrestle with the detritus of his predecessor.

So here's the list of poetry books I bought below -- wouldn't it be nice if, especially if your candidate won, you address two birds with one act (weak poetry sales and the faltering economy which relies on consumer spending for two-thirds of its fuel) and you celebrate the impending change of administration with a poetry book purchase!:

NEW POETRY PURCHASES
PIECES OF AIR IN THE EPIC by Brenda Hillman

BRIGHT EXISTENCE by Brenda Hillman

ASTROMETRY ORGONON by Mark Lamoreaux

GRAVE OF LIGHT: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS, 1970-2005 by Alice Notley

IN THE PINES by Alice Notley

I can hear some of you Peeps hooting at me -- let Moi just say with absolutely no apology that selling poetry books is a difficult task and if I can get said sales going by generating some coattail effect from the U.S. Presidential election, so be it....besides, I think it's apt to discuss poetry when discussing the historical event that is United States President Barack Obama...!