‘How do you put up with it?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know,’ he replied glumly. I realised that it had been several weeks since I’d heard Dylan mutter a single inspirational quote. There was hope for him yet.

Sunday July 8th

This month’s book is The End of the Affair by Graham Greene.

I have decided not to return to Bloomer’s, having taken something of a dislike to the shop after receiving a rather brusque letter concerning my overdue payment for Robinson Crusoe.

It felt good to be back in the bookshop on the high street although, as is customary, I came away with rather more than I’d intended: Carson McCullers’ The Heart is a Lonely Hunter; Elizabeth Smart’s By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept; Harold Pinter’s Betrayal; Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness; and John Gray’s Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.

I also bought a book entitled Deaths of the Poets. This was a rather morbid exploration of the stories behind the demise of famous poets: Dylan Thomas and his eighteen straight whiskies, Sylvia Plath and her Primrose Hill gas oven, John Berryman and his leap into the frozen Mississippi, and so on. It is grisly but fascinating! Who’d have thought there could be so many ways for a poet to snuff it?

Monday July 9th

Revolution, Inc.

This social movement protest is brought to you

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The arrival of Well Versed – The Quarterly Magazine for the Discerning Poet becomes more foreboding every quarter and today’s issue was no exception. My poem was unplaced, as per usual. And there, of course, was the competition winner, Toby Salt, with the latest impenetrable example of his inexorably rising star.

1905