After writing a note about Anvil (see Wednesday 3 September blog) I had a look through the Arc Publications catalogue and I was overtaken by pleasure, again, at how internationalist the poetry party is, at least up in Todmorden where Arc lives.

There's six Basque poets, in a bi-lingual edition and - oh, look - there's six Lithuanians. Over in the corner are a handful of North East poets chatting to some of their Bulgarian colleagues, and if their joint editor Bill Herbert is talking in his broad Scots none of them will understand a word he says. John Kinsella - no surprise there - is introducing a raft of Australian poets. Unfortunately the late great Julia Darling is not be at the party, sending (to use the title of her second and last collection)

"Apologies for Absence". Ivor Cutler, sadly, has also not replied to his invitation - but his books are there, collectable little square things. Michelene Wandor, on the other hand - who used to be one of our writers - has climbed aboard the Arc and is happily conversing with Indians, Algerians and an Austrian about something interesting that happened in 1656. Arc spans the world and the centuries.