Children's Poet Laureate

Ran across his books while doing RFID work in Children's.

Where the sidewalk ends

Ran across this book whilst processing books for RFID.

The Baite

A patron came in seeking interpretations (Spark Notes, she said, were fine) of John Donne's poem "The Baite." There were books of his poems at 811 Donne, and critcisms at 823 and 828 Donne. Herewith, the poem:

The Baite

COME live with mee, and bee my love,

And wee will some new pleasures prove

Of golden sands, and christall brookes:

With silken lines, and silver hookes.

There will the river whispering runne

Warm'd by thy eyes, more then the Sunne.

And there the'inamor'd fish will stay,

Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swimme in that live bath,

Each fish, which every channell hath,

Will amorously to thee swimme,

Gladder to catch thee, then thou him.

If thou, to be so seene, beest loath,

By Sunne, or Moone, thou darknest both,

And if my selfe have leave to see,

I need not their light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,

And cut their legges, with shells and weeds,

Or treacherously poore fish beset,

With strangling snare, or windowie net:

Let coarse bold hands, from slimy nest

The bedded fish in banks out-wrest,

Or curious traitors, sleavesilke flies

Bewitch poore fishes wandring eyes.

For thee, thou needst no such deceit,

For thou thy selfe art thine owne bait;

That fish, that is not chatch'd thereby,

Alas, is wiser farre then I.




John Donne

Conrad in twilight

A patron called looking for three books. I recognized his name and voice: he always starts the conversation by introducing himself (Hello, this is Philip Segal); he then asks whom he's speaking with. Pleasant chap. Always interesting requests.

Today he was looking for two books by John Crowe Ransom: Selected poems, published in 1948; and Chills and Fever. I found several Selected poems books, but none from 1948, so I called the patron back, and asked him what poem he was looking for. It was Conrad In Twilight. It turns out that the book of Selected Poems that HWPL owns contains that poem.

And his third request was: How we think, a restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process, by John Dewey. Boston, New York [etc.] D.C. Heath and company, 1933. In the book Dewey is listed on the tile page as Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Columbia University. [The poor unfortunate soul must've known Nicholas Murray Butler.]

HWPL owns both books; the collection never ceases amazing me.

Praise song for the day.

Elizabeth Alexander's poem for the Inauguration of Barack Obama as POTUS.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009
THE POEM

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

A find

Eye disease gave great painters a different vision of their work, Stanford researcher says.

In searching for a poem about Monet having refused an operation on his eyes, I found this item. The poem is Monet Refuses the Operation, by Lisel Mueller.

Now the Drum of War

When the Civil War erupted in April 1861, Walt Whitman, at age 42, was too old to bear arms in the Union Army. It seemed that his best days as a poet were behind him as well. Half a dozen years had passed since the first publication of his "Leaves of Grass" collection, and the literary sensation over its cosmic display of passions had subsided. Whitman appeared to be slipping into creative decline.

Two of the bard's brothers, Andrew and George, enlisted in the Union army. George was wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg in late 1862. Walt went looking for him.

So began one of the most remarkable odysseys in American literary history, a quest that transformed Whitman, the visionary egoist of "Leaves of Grass," into a man of action and engagement with the world.

In "Now the Drum of War," Robert Roper captures this turning point in Whitman's life -- the transformation of his poetry but also the dramatic new chapter in the story of the Whitman family. In "Song of Myself," from "Leaves of Grass," Whitman had proclaimed: "I contain multitudes." First among those multitudes, no doubt, were the influences derived from a large family so roiled by love and strife that it makes Eugene O'Neill's Tyrone family look like the Waltons.

Great line.

Walt's brother Jeff, a civil engineer who might have qualified for an exemption from the military draft but paid $400 for a substitute to take his place. The three other brothers were Eddie, the youngest in the family, who was mentally retarded; the disease-addled Jesse; and Andrew, the other army volunteer, who died of consumption in 1863.

While there was little Whitman could do for his bulletproof brother in the hospital, he discovered a new vocation: caring for soldiers in more desperate straits. Rather than returning home to New York, Whitman stayed in Washington, working in a patent office by day and nursing soldiers in military hospitals by night.

George had fought in 17 major battles, had his canteen shot away at Spotsylvania, and had his clothes shot through a dozen times. He'd wind up being promoted to captain.

Mr. Roper argues persuasively that George's diary notes influenced Walt's writings, including the war poems in "Drum-Taps" (1865). Still, there were some aspects of the war that defied even Whitman's skills. "History had outrun conception," Mr. Roper writes. "A way of talking about the horror had not yet been invented." Not until World War I would poets find words adequate to render the nightmare.

Walt Whitman, aided by seeing the conflict through his brother George's eyes and by using the evidence of his own senses, wrote the best war poetry possible in his time, verses that shunned sentimentality while ennobling the cause but stopped short of irony while recording the horrific effects of modern warfare.


Now the Drum of War
By Robert Roper
(Walker, 421 pages, $28)

French poet

A mother and three daughters came over to the Reference Desk; the mother wore sunglasses and a ear piece for a cellphone (I refer to them as implants). Modern orthodox: long skirts, flat shoes, no makeup. The oldest daughter, an 11th grade student, had an assignment of a French poet named Freneau. She knew nothing about the poet: not when he lived, simply that he was French.

After getting the call number of a book about Freneau, I showed her how to use the OPAC to search: by author, by subject, and by keyword. Her mother kept inserting comments, which I found less than useful, but I concentrated on the librarianship.

I then walked her to the stacks, showed her the 811 and 818 sections, telling her how, in some cases, looking at books to either side of the book she found might be useful (though not in this case). She left the library with two books about Freneau, and some knowledge about using a library. I was satisfied with a job well done, a patron educated (a young woman studying at the carrel near the 818s smiled in contentment at seeing me teach the young lady, and at her absorbing information).

Such encounters are the very essence of how satisfying it is to be a librarian.