Books and Libraries. Poems

Preface
THE LOVE OF BOOKS
WALLACE STEVENS The House Was Quiet and the
World Was Calm
DYLAN THOMAS from Notes on the Art of Poetry
THEODORE BEZA To His Library Having Beene
Sometime Absent Thence
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Personal Talk and Books
EMILY DICKINSON 'There is no Frigate like a Book'
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Sonnet XXIII
GEORGE CRABBE from The Library
TSITSI JAJI Unaccompanied Minor
MAYA ANGELOU I Love the Look of Words
ANON. Latin Proverb
TESSA RANSFORD from In Praise of Libraries
HENRY VAUGHAN To His Books
JOHN DONNE Valediction to His Booke
PABLO NERUDA from Ode to the Book (II)
LYNN POWELL Sword Drill.
TONY HARRISON Book Ends (I)
ALL SORTS OF READERS
S. T. COLERIDGE from Seven Lectures on Shakespeare
and Milton
LOUIS MACNEICE The British Museum Reading Room
STEPHEN KUUSISTO Night Seasons
COVENTRY PATMORE The Revelation
HILAIRE BELLOC On His Books
ANON, from A Description of a College Room
PIERRE DE RONSARD To His Valet
T'AO CH'IEN Reading the Book of Hills and Seas
MUDDUPALANI How to Read a Book
ROBERT SERVICE from Book Lover
PAUL VALERY The Angel Handed Me a Book
CZESLAW MILOSZ Father in the Library
TURNING THE PAGE
BILLY COLLINS Books
DAVID s. HERRSTROM Sacred Books
STEPHEN DUNN The Book and I
CHARLES BUKOWSKI They Arrived in Time
DANTE ALIGHIERI from Inferno
GJERTRUD SCHNACKENBERG Supernatural Love
JOHN BURNSIDE September Evening: Deer at Big Basin
YI SHA Sunday
FLAVIО SANTI Dear Mary
JUAN MANUEL ROCA The Library of the Blind
MONA VAN DUYN In Bed with a Book
IKU TAKENAKA My Books
MEL PRYOR In a Secondhand Bookshop
AGI MISHOL Poetry Reading
С. P. CAVAFY Very Rarely
DEREK WALCOTT 'This page is a cloud'
JEAN SPRACKLAND The Girl Who Ate Books
JOHN GLENDAY For My Wife, Reading in Bed
DISCOVERING READING
JOYCE SUTPHEN Things You Didn't Put on Your Resume
JULIA ALVAREZ Waiting for My Father to Pick Me Up at
the Library
LAURIE L. PATTON On Learning a Sacred Language in
Childhood
LEWIS CARROLL from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
PATRICIA HOOPER The World Book
MARGARITA ENGLE Tula
CELEBRATING INDIVIDUAL BOOKS AND AUTHORS
ANDREW MARVELL On Mr. Milton's Paradise Lost
JOHN KEATS On First Looking into Chapmans Homer
W. H. AUDEN Montaigne
IVOR GURNEY George Chapman - The Iliad
R. s. THOMAS Henry James
JORGE LUIS BORGES On Acquiring an Encyclopedia
EZRA POUND Cantico del Sole
ANDREW D. SCRIMGEOUR Winter Pages
SIEGFRIED SASSOON To an Eighteenth Century Poet
JOSEPH BRODSKY from Elegy for John Donne
GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO Boccaccio Sends Petrarch a
Copy of Dante
ANNE STEVENSON Re-reading Jane
WENDY COPE My Fathers Shakespeare
BECAUSE OF LIBRARIES
ALBERTO RIOS Don't Go into the Library
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES from For the Dedication of
the New City Library, Boston
W. E. GLADSTONE 'Books are delightful society'
LIZ LOCHHEAD Random
YURI ANDRUKHOVYCH Library
KOSTAS KOUTSOURELIS Library
LAURYNAS KATKUS On the Sixth Floor (Mazvydas
Library)
JILL OSIER Elegy
ROBERT L. CHAPMAN Library
ROSEMARY GRIEBEL Library
NAOMI SHIHAB NYE Because of Libraries We Can Say
These Things
ALASDAIR PATERSON On the Library
WILLIAM COWPER from An Ode Addressed to Mr. John
Rouse
WALT WHITMAN Shut Not Your Doors to Me, Proud
Libraries
FREDERICK BUECHNER The Mystery of Words
GERALD STERN Stepping Out of Poetry
ABRAHAM COWLEY from Ode. Mr. Cowley's Book
Presenting It self to the University Library of Oxford
MARGARET CAVENDISH Fame's Library within the
Temple
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER The Library
GILLIAN CLARKE In a Cardiff Arcade, 1952 u. A.
FANTHORPE In the English Faculty Library, Oxford
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL Literature for Desolate Islands
LESBIA HARFORD Closing Time: Public Library IAN
MCMILLAN Adult Fiction
ALWAYS THE LIBRARIANS
JOSEPH MILLS If Librarians Were Honest
ANDY JACKSON Enquiry Desk
RITA DOVE Maple Valley Branch Library, 1967
WILLIAM MCILVANNEY In the Library
NIKKI GIOVANNI A Poem for My Librarian, Mrs. Long
SEAN O'BRIEN The Beautiful Librarians
JOHN HOLLAND Elegy. On the Death of
Esther Caterer, Librarian of Surry-Street Book Rooms
PHILIP METRES Hearing of Alia Muhammed Bakers
Stroke
THE WRITING OF BOOKS
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA The Joy of Writing
DURS GRUNBEIN On Learning Old Vocabulary
AMIT MAJMUDAR Vocative
ALICIA OSTRIKER from Ars Poetica
GABRIELA MISTRAL The Teller of Tales
ALEXANDER POPE Sound and Sense
PHILIPPE JACCOTTET from Songsfrom Below
ILYA KAMINKSKY Authors Prayer
WILLIAM BLAKE from Europe: A Prophecy
LES MURRAY The Privacy of Typewriters
LI SEN Confronting Nujiang
WILLIAM STAFFORD A Writers Fountain Pen Talking
ODIA OFEIMUN I Am a Writer
PETRARCH from Canzoniere
CATULLUS 'To whom shall I offer this book?'
W. В. YEATS Where My Books Go
ANNE BRADSTREET The Author to Her Book
MARTIAL Epigrams 1.3
HORACE Odes III.30
GUIDO CAVALCANTI Sonnet XVIII
UEJIMA ONITSURA Untitled haiku
J. W. GOETHE
Authors
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW The Poet and His
Songs
CALLIMACHUS 'The very first time'
MARGINALIA
JOHN F. M. DOVASTON Bookworms: How to Kill
ROBERT BURNS The Book-Worms
EVENUS OF ASCALON Page-eater
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING from Aurora Leigh
THOMAS HORNSBY FERRIL Bookmarks
BEN JONSON To My Booke-seller
TARANNUM RIYAZ The Scent of Old Books
ROBERT HERRICK To His Booke
UDAYA R. TENNAKOON Books Up On Books
DECIMUS AUSONIUS 'YouVe bought books'
EUGENE FIELD The Bibliomaniac's Prayer
ANDREW LANG Ballade of the Book-mans Paradise
ADILIA LOPES 'I don't like books'
LOPE DE VEGA So Many Books
THE OLD TESTAMENT Ecclesiastes 12:11-12 [The
sayings of the wise']
PHILIP LARKIN A Study of Reading Habits
RETHINKING BOOKS AND READING
FRANK OSEN Bookshop Stopping
DOUGLAS DUNN December's Door
JOE LUCIA The Afterlife of Libraries
BERTOLT BRECHT The Book Burnings
MICHAEL SYMMONS ROBERTS The Future of Books
ELAINE EQUI The Libraries Didn't Burn
Index of Authors
Acknowledgments