i miss atticus

atticus, which now goes by the boring name amherst books, is the one place in amherst i miss the most. no, i never spent very much time there really, but it's where i attended some of my memorable readings. it's where i would go to find that collection of poems that no one else had. it's where they keep matthew rohrer's three collections IN STOCK!! it was the only place on the planet that sold kobo ade's the woman in the dunes. and the old fellows that ran the place seemed to know every book ever printed (which is awesome). i know that if i went in there today i would be able to find something by mina loy, anything. but, alas, atticus (i won't stop calling it that, by the way) is a 3 hour drive away from my home on cape cod. instead i am given this book-mall of mass-produced bribble brabble blahdom borders. i love borders for a lot of reasons (one being that i can't not love a book store, no matter how awful, it's a built in fault of my processor chip); they have really nice hot cocoa, an allegiance with jelly belly, and stupidly comfy sofas strewn all about. there are, too, though, reasons for which i loath the place. in comparison to the poetry section at wee little atticus, borders is severely lacking. atticus has got about 5 feet more shelf space of just poetry (never mind theory or poetics) than borders, and borders dedicates some of its small poetry space to some of the worst looking anthologies i've ever come across; meanwhile, not one copy of postmodern can be found. what i did find at borders tonight though (i had a spiffy gift card) was marie howe's the good thief and a collection of george oppen's poems (sadly though, there are only two poems from discrete series (fortunately not two of the ones i already have copies of), but i suppose the intro by robert creeley will make up for that)). i also picked up dave barry does japan and talk to the hand by lynne truss (who is brilliant and funny). now i just have to finish my first dr who novel so that i can crack some more binding (i don't, actually, crack the bindings of my books, it's just an expression). had i had a $50 gift card to atticus i would have come home with mina loy and some kawabata (can you believe that the only kawabata novel they had was snow country?!? the one i already have!!!). be grateful what you have right? *sigh*