I'm confused as how to idiomatically change a xml tree accessed through clojure.contrib's zip-filter.xml. Should be trying to do this at all, or is there a better way?

Say that I have some dummy xml file "itemdb.xml" like this:

<itemlist> 
  <item id="1">
    <name>John</name>
    <desc>Works near here.</desc>
  </item>
  <item id="2">
    <name>Sally</name>
    <desc>Owner of pet store.</desc>
  </item>
</itemlist>

And I have some code:

(require '[clojure.zip :as zip]
  '[clojure.contrib.duck-streams :as ds]
  '[clojure.contrib.lazy-xml :as lxml]
  '[clojure.contrib.zip-filter.xml :as zf]) 

(def db (ref (zip/xml-zip (lxml/parse-trim (java.io.File. "itemdb.xml")))))

;; Test that we can traverse and parse.
(doall (map #(print (format "%10s: %s\n"
       (apply str (zf/xml-> % :name zf/text))
       (apply str (zf/xml-> % :desc zf/text))))
     (zf/xml-> @db :item)))

;; I assume something like this is needed to make the xml tags
(defn create-item [name desc]
  {:tag :item
   :attrs {:id "3"}
   :contents
   (list {:tag :name :attrs {} :contents (list name)}
         {:tag :desc :attrs {} :contents (list desc)})})

(def fred-item (create-item "Fred" "Green-haired astrophysicist."))

;; This disturbs the structure somehow
(defn append-item [xmldb item]
  (zip/insert-right (-> xmldb zip/down zip/rightmost) item))

;; I want to do something more like this
(defn append-item2 [xmldb item]
  (zip/insert-right (zip/rightmost (zf/xml-> xmldb :item)) item))

(dosync (alter db append-item2 fred-item))

;; Save this simple xml file with some added stuff.
(ds/spit "appended-itemdb.xml"
    (with-out-str (lxml/emit (zip/root @db) :pad true)))

I am unclear about how to use the clojure.zip functions appropriately in this case, and how that interacts with zip-filter.

If you spot anything particularly weird in this small example, please point it out.