April is Poetry Month. We’re celebrating here with a poem a day, by giving out poems like candy when you visit us, and discounting all poetry books by 10%. Because reading poetry is a fairly acceptable form of social deviance. And we’re all about that.
I measure every Grief I meet(561)
by Emily Dickinson
I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, eyes –
I wonder if It weighs like Mine –
Or has an Easier size.
I wonder if They bore it long –
Or did it just begin –
I could not tell the Date of Mine –
It feels so old a pain –
I wonder if it hurts to live –
And if They have to try –
And whether – could They choose between –
It would not be – to die –
I note that Some – gone patient long –
At length, renew their smile –
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil –
I wonder if when Years have piled –
Some Thousands – on the Harm –
That hurt them early – such a lapse
Could give them any Balm –
Or would they go on aching still
Through Centuries of Nerve –
Enlightened to a larger Pain –
In Contrast with the Love –
The Grieved – are many – I am told –
There is the various Cause –
Death – is but one – and comes but once –
And only nails the eyes –
There's Grief of Want – and grief of Cold –
A sort they call "Despair" –
There's Banishment from native Eyes –
In sight of Native Air –
And though I may not guess the kind –
Correctly – yet to me
A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary –
To note the fashions – of the Cross –
And how they're mostly worn –
Still fascinated to presume
That Some – are like my own –
April is Poetry Month. We’re celebrating here with a poem a day, by giving out poems like candy when you visit us, and discounting all poetry books by 10%. Because reading poetry is a fairly acceptable form of social deviance. And we’re all about that.
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe,
Sailed on a river of crystal light
Into a sea of dew.
“Where are you going, what do you wish?”
The old moon asked the three.
“We have come to fish for the herring fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we,”
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
and Nod.
The old moon laughed and he sang a song,
And they rocked in the wooden shoe;
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew;
The little stars were the herring fish
That lived in the beautiful sea.
“Now cast your nets wherever you wish
For never afraid are we,”
So cried the stars to the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
and Nod.
All night long their nets they threw
To the stars in the twinkling foam,-
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe
Bringing the fishermen home.
‘Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed
As if it could not be;
And some folks thought ’twas a dream they’d dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea;
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
and Nod.
Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one’s trundle-bed;
So close your eyes while Mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be;
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
and Nod.
April is Poetry Month. We’re celebrating here with a poem a day, by giving out poems like candy when you visit us, and discounting all poetry books by 10%. Because reading poetry is a fairly acceptable form of social deviance. And we’re all about that.
April is Poetry Month. We’re celebrating here with a poem a day, by giving out poems like candy when you visit us, and discounting all poetry books by 10%. Because reading poetry is a fairly acceptable form of social deviance. And we’re all about that.
It’s okay to be quiet sometimes, even if this quiet looks a little too much like sadness. Sometimes, it’s necessary.
Keeping Still
If late at night, when watching the moon, you still
sometimes get vertigo, it’s understandable
that you wish suddenly and hard for fences, for someone
to marry you. Desiring a working knowledge,
needing to know some context by heart, you might
accept anything: the room without windows,
the far and frozen North, or the prairie, the prairie
even, if it means that.
The long wide space and cold dirt that will not
be seduced into hills, and the dust, that even after
you have kicked and wept and fallen on it pounding,
will not produce a tree. It will allow you
to rise with certainty and move with the relief
of necessary things to the wash on the line,
to the small maple you brought here that must be tied
for the winter or die.
Even the prairie night, blind with snow,
when no one comes, and you no longer look
to the mirror but force your fingers to the stitching
and produce a child to help with the lambing
and the carrying of water. Although it might be years
before you turn and stop, startled
by the sweet and sudden smell of sheets snapping
in the sun, and the drunken lilac, prairie purple,
blooming by the doorway, because you planted it.
April is Poetry Month. We’re celebrating here with a poem a day, by giving out poems like candy when you visit us, and discounting all poetry books by 10%. Because reading poetry is a fairly acceptable form of social deviance. And we’re all about that.
…built dams in the creek and loved making friends with the salamanders.
…traveled to India.
…was able to understand my own existence and feel how lucky I was to be.
…kissed slugs and loved frogs.
…choked a girl with shoelaces.
…was too free.
…lived in fear of upsetting Sister Mary Elizabeth.
…fell out of a second story window and survived!
…dreamed of being Barbie, so I became a model… and failed.
…would not rest my eyes or go to bed at night without fully believing that the stages, lights, costumes, songs, concepts I dreamed of would one day turn into a very bright, joyful and prosperous reality.
…sat in the basement with my sister in the dark pretending to be on a flight to Tahiti.
…wanted to be an Olympic gymnast.
…made funny faces all day long.
…had such high hopes.
…could fly.
…was painfully shy.
…knew everything.
…ate vegemite all day long like it was going out of fashion.
…ate mudpies.
…believed in dragons. I’m still looking.
…had a pet duck named Wilbur.
…wanted to be an octopus.
…fell in love with a boy named Daniel.
…dreamed of having a family.
…knew I was destined for greatness.
…was too precocious for words. I’d slap my little self right now, if I could.
…was much too sensitive.
…had actual, meaningful conversations with tress and flowers and animals and birds.
…could think of nothing more fun than spending all day in bed, reading. I am now very fat and very smart.
…made things with my hands. Moved all day long, constantly on one adventure or another. I was happy. I was a really happy boy.
…never left my mother’s lap.
…found everything mysterious. Felt like an alien on the wrong planet. Not in a bad way… it’s just all still so weird to me. This world.
April is Poetry Month. We’re celebrating here with a poem a day, by giving out poems like candy when you visit us, and discounting all poetry books by 10%. Because reading poetry is a fairly acceptable form of social deviance. And we’re all about that.
Amazing, isn’t it? Not how drunk he is, but how much space there is between each word he speaks, how he tells almost the whole story, how sweet he seems, how charming and affected and innocent. Part of the audiobook, Ernest Hemingway Reads Ernest Hemingway, this was recorded on a pocket recorder sometime in the 50’s.
We have precisely 1,456,987 books in stock with Hemingway as their subject. Here’s just a handful of our bestsellers:
“Focusing on the years 1934 to 1961—from Hemingway’s pinnacle as the reigning monarch of American letters until his suicide—Paul Hendrickson traces the writer’s exultations and despair around the one constant in his life during this time: his beloved boat, Pilar.”
“Ernest Hemingway always had cats as companions, from the ones he adored as a child in Illinois and Michigan, to the more than 30 he had as an adult in Paris, Key West, Cuba, and Idaho. All are chronicled and most are pictured here, along with revelations of how they fit into the many twists and turns of his life and loves.”
“A deeply evocative story of ambition and betrayal, The Paris Wife captures a remarkable period of time and a love affair between two unforgettable people: Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley.” A novel.
“Compelling, illuminating, poignant, and deeply insightful, Paris Without End provides a rare, intimate glimpse of the writer who so fully captured the American imagination and the remarkable woman who inspired his passion and his art—the only woman Hemingway never stopped loving.” Not a novel.
“With books like 2001’s PEN/Faulkner winner Bel Canto and the new State of Wonder, Patchett has demonstrated a singular ability to write smart literary novels that are also big best sellers. And when it comes to literature and books in general, she’s put her money where her mouth is: in 2011 she opened Parnassus Books in her hometown of Nashville, placing herself on the front lines of several ongoing battles for the fate of the printed word.”
Ann Patchett is one of the nominees for Time Magazine‘s Most Influential People of 2012. I decided to vote “Definitely” as opposed to “No Way” when asked by a poll whether she should be on the list. 55.16% have said No Way. Also, she’s right in between Leon Panetta and Ron Paul. I can’t explain why, but that’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time.
Speaking of jokes, did you know that the 2012-13 California budget provides zero (0) funding for public libraries? That’s zero dollars. You can write a letter or ten, and here’s some information.
Listening to their voices rambling… scrutinizing the places they lived in… reading between the lines of novels and stories and poems… really believing we can get close.
Give me hunger,
O you gods that sit and give
The world its orders.
Give me hunger, pain and want,
Shut me out with shame and failure
From your doors of gold and fame,
Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger!
But leave me a little love,
A voice to speak to me in the day end,
A hand to touch me in the dark room
Breaking the long loneliness.
In the dusk of day-shapes
Blurring the sunset,
One little wandering, western star
Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow.
Let me go to the window,
Watch there the day-shapes of dusk
And wait and know the coming
Of a little love.
Hidden Altar-
-tucked-
Where sprites bristle with Eve
and flow freely
No one considered
the ritual
no one thought it up-
out of book and prayer
twinned with time
came free spirits...
Tiny silken moth
fluttering by
accidentally brushes
the heart...
...light passes
and Eve listens
to lost Romeo
or Aristotle
or Cain
with same forgiving ear...
So the falling trees
can accept their fate
for one more day.
The Other Day at Portrait... 