![ode to my library ode to my library](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/hellopoetry/1837157/fb.jpg)
I love the opening of this poem, because it's so true, and also because it's funny. I found this last poem at The Library as Incubator Project, and you can visit the author's website here. The book has a calm cover, a straight spine. The book has already lived through its troubles. She is carrying a book past the fire station When the day contains such long and hot places, If a dog runs at her again, she will use the book as a shield.
#Ode to my library cracked
She is holding the book close to her body,Ĭarrying it home on the cracked sidewalk, Because of Libraries We Can Say These Things by Naomi Shihab Nye If you work in a library, this next poem reminds you exactly why. Start with her Selected: Words Under the Words. If you haven't read Naomi Shihab Nye, you really must. found in Special Orders by Edward Hirsch With his satchel of scrawls and scribbles, I'd give anything to find that birdy boy againīursting out into the dusky blue afternoon Pecking at nuts, nesting in broken spines, scratching He spent the Sabbath flying between the wobbly stacksĪnd the flimsy wooden tables on the second floor, Who perched in the branches of the old branch library. I wish I could find that skinny, long-beaked boy And this poem also has a bird boy, which delights.
![ode to my library ode to my library](https://1b29734732e161d145aa-fd1d7d2940d92424afe9518580c7a85b.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/products/003041i1.jpg)
The connections between books and trees, and libraries and branches always make me happy. I like this poem partly because of the crumbling pages of the Dictionary of Angels, and partly because the librarian is tall, as I am. Probably my favourite library poem is by Charles Simic, so let's start there. When you work in a library, as I do, and you happen to be a poet/writer, you end up collecting library poems, taking note of who writes them.