Company. Company is the genius of books. The quiet way they wait full of life, lives, let’s say living, without us, us who are all necessary, to life, living, and books; let’s say the company of books is the open jangle of keys to our otherwise locking minds, let’s say this taking up of minds is exactly the kind of minding and attention we owe each other, that we need, this kindness, to give, that which keeps on giving — understands Adrienne Rich: 

a succession of brief, amazing movements

each one making possible the next. (‘From a survivor’, Diving into the Wreck)

Aerialist or reader of books, the safe gymnastics in the wreckage of mind and minding. What will you do? Now let’s see what you’ll do next. Company — (Michael Pederson:) the ‘cognitive conga’ of a collection — let’s say we’ll conga up and down this island of chain-link fences and people cheering and cheersing with bolt-cutter-poems. Now, an island of entrances.

The stir-up of the dark port of a poem,

each a heady ride into possible distances.

Person, poem, books. Company, a word which in our time sounds more like business than each other. The following people, poems, books were my company for September.

A Month in Poetry (full selection) - Jack Wiltshire

1. How to paint the portrait of a bird, Jacques Prévert 
2. Diving into the Wreck, Adrienne Rich 
3. Bantam, Jackie Kay 
4. Harmonium, Wallace Stevens 
5. The Cat Prince and other poems, Michael Pederson 
6. She had some horses, Joy Harjo 
7. The Man with Night Sweats, Thom Gunn 
8. Quiet, Victoria Adukwei Bulley 
9. Songs of the Kisaeng: courtesan poetry of the last Korean dynasty, Hwang Chini et al 
10. Deaths and Entrances, Dylan Thomas 
11. C+nto & Othered Poems, Joelle Taylor 
12. Ban en Banlieue, Bhanu Kapil 
13. Now Let’s See What You’re Gonna Do, Katerina Gogou