How Cool is THIS?--Poetry to Wait By

This is triply cool:

First, our town (Northampton, Massachusetts) has a poet laureate.

Second, she is Lesléa Newman, author of the acclaimed (and occasionally banned) Heather has Two Mommies.

And third, she has spearheaded a project called "Poetry to Wait By" that involves placing books of poetry in the waiting rooms of local businesses.

So instead of having to choose between a three-month-old copy of Golf magazine or the latest Dentists' Monthly, you might feast your eyes on Keats, Ferlinghetti, or former US poet laureate Billy Collins.

What's in any given waiting room depends on what volunteers have donated to the cause. But whatever the meter and rhyme on offer, it's bound to be superior to the gossip and dross of the usual waiting-room reading.