Pacific Festival of the Book

There is nothing quite as intense and satisfying as two book lovers deep in conversation. Sandra Janssen of Windshift Press and Lynne Van Luven, editor of Nobody's Mother (Touch Wood Editions) sharing ideas.



Now that wouldn't be a bit of publishing gossip would it?

Crowds of passionate book lovers and writers stopped to chat over the course of the Festival. The chance to talk about books and publishing for hours at a time is just too tempting~!!

World Poetry Day - March 21st

To mark this year’s World Poetry Day, UNESCO will pay tribute to Chilean poet and Nobel Literacy Prize winner, Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), the centenary of whose birth is also being celebrated.

My favourite Neruda poem is Tonight I Can Write. This poem was at the heart of the film Il Postino depicting an apocryphal incident in Neruda's life. In this poem he describes the pleasures and torments of erotic love with a sensual precision that is not often found in the works other modern poets.

An excerpt from Tonight I Can Write:

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

- Pablo Neruda -