A Thousand Books

As someone whose wife won’t throw away an inch of print, I particularly appreciate this... Well written too.

I thought that the books on my shelves represented what was in my mind. We have thousands, and I now feel they are a burden. I have an intellectual son who has happily hauled off a bunch to his tiny graduate school apartment, but we still have too many. Be grateful to yourself that you were able to part with them. I have to do the same thing. Fave*.

I couldn't part with any I truly love. Since I love them all (including "Analytic Geometry"), I'll just keep carrying them house to house.

Like the poem, though.

We ARE made of books. They are the flesh, muscle, ligaments, blood, and bone of our existence. I carry them everywhere I go, but in a way I envy the speaker his freedom from the heft.*

Yes, books we be. Even before I could read them, I built cities out of encyclopedias and bridges out of my father's classics. I once got rid of a wall's worth of books, but they multiply, breed somehow... in dark corners.

Just last week, Carson McCullers gave birth to a novella with a nose reminiscent of Neruda. Time to clean house again, I think.

I like this one.

I did this once because I knew it was necessary to simplify my life and head but somehow they found their way home. Good luck keeping the pesky things away.

Good poem*

"Books I taught." The entire list is elegaic because our relationship with books is covert. Books I taught is the action that puts the books in the air of the world and extends beyond our privacies. *

me too, Bill, me too!!! all i do now is give books away--

"Once I thought I was made of books."

everything previous to this last line (thank you for putting into words what i was once made of)-is another one of your brilliant works of art-true artist, Bill Yarrow-you are a book i am reading-shall seek more ***

Readers are like alcoholics--hiding the secret stashes from spouses around the house.

Bill I remember this poem vividly! So well done! The metaphor is a stabber.
*

This is great - and ironic. Next to my feet, below my desk, sits two brown grocery bags of books I've been "Meaning" to donate for the past 2 weeks. It is true, they multiply.
The rhythm, allegory and weight of the stacked verbs makes this poem a gem!

been there, breathed it. *