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Friday, August 19, 2011

Poetry Friday is Here!


I'm not a true collector. At least not like my husband, whose collection of old bottles (milk bottles, soda bottles, medicine bottle), signed Yankees paraphernalia, and antique toys provide an endless source of conversation with clients in his office. Notice I said "in his office." Right, they don't come home.

I do like teapots and have about four or five of them. This is one of my favorites. It's hand-sculpted porcelain by Franz, Johnny Ho, Designer.

But I don't want many pieces or lots of other teapots. Just a little, a touch, a hint, so that I can appreciate the craftsmanship and savor the beauty.


The only thing I have more than a few of are books. I like old books, especially collections of poetry. Again, I don't have many and they aren't rare books, but they do have character. By that I mean they have tale-tell signs of a former reader/owner's presence. I like to find a book with the corners of pages turned down, with notes written in the margins, with highlighted sections and underlined phrases. I want to know how much someone else once loved these words.

This copy of Federico Garcia Lorca's Lament for the Death of a Bullfighter still has the faded dust jacket covering the blood red cloth cover. Inside, printed in red pen, the owner wrote her name, the date--October 21, 1954--and Paris, France. She also left her promotional post card in the pages. She could be contacted through the Actor's Equity Association.





Pressed between the pages of this 1971 edition of Anne Sexton's Transformations, I found a Bazooka Bubblegum cartoon.

The fortunereads: You will accumulate much knowledge by keeping an open mind.

This owner has character. Maybe he or she should be a character!







This library copy of How Does a Poem Mean? by John Ciardi is a favorite. Published in 1959 and bound by New Method Book Bindery, it reminds me of today's Bound to Stay Bound Books that will last forever, but don't have much pizzazz, at least on the outside.



The highlighted line says: A good poem is always better than one could have expected. Even on re-reading, and even on many re-readings, the truly achieved poem stays richer than one's best memory of it.

Thanks for joining me on this Poetry Friday. May your memories of these poems stay full, rich, collectible. Enjoy.



18 comments:

  1. I'm not sure what's causing the strange formatting issue here today. Just enjoy the poetry.

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  2. Loved your post, Dori! Thanks for hosting.

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  3. Hi, Doraine - thanks for hosting! Over at The Drift Record I have some thoughts about Whidbey Island and a poem titled "When on a Summer's Morn" by William Henry Davies.

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  4. Dori -- my poem today goes with your post! It's a found poem from a 1922 edition of Robert Louis Stevenson passages!!

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  5. Love this, Doraine! Thanks for hosting. I’m in with a short "melon"-choly offering from a garden critter (apologies to William Carlos Williams) here.

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  6. Hi Doraine - I don't have anything to add to Poetry Friday, but I did want to say hello! I love that you collect old poetry... and aren't we as a species, collectors in general? What a luxury to be so (unlike our hunter-gatherer forebearers). Also, what a curse! I am constantly weeding out in an effort/desire to lessen my accumulations. Interesting paradox. Happy day to you!

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  7. Thanks for hosting, Dori! I collect used books, too. I love finding traces of their past owners and imagining who they were, what they did, what the passages they've noted and underlined and folded over must have signified. It's a little like detective work, isn't it?!

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  8. I loved peeking into your collection of books...thank you for hosting! Today I have a poem in the voice of our new puppy, Sage!

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  9. Hi, Dori. Thanks for hosting! I love the photos you shared of your book finds -- especially the Bazooka wrapper.

    At Author Amok, I'm searching for the origins of the traditional nursery rhyme, "The Lion and the Unicorn" (inspired by a family trip to Colonial Williamsburg, where the British Lion/Unicorn crest rules).

    http://authoramok.blogspot.com/2011/08/poetry-friday-lion-and-unicorn.html

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  10. Thanks for doing the roundup this week!

    At Wild Rose Reader, I have some "things to do" poems that I wrote about school.

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  11. Thanks for sharing your poetry books!

    Today I'm celebrating Ogden Nash's 109th birthday at alphabet soup.

    Thanks for hosting today!

    jama
    xo

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  12. Thanks for hosting, Dori! Today I have a new poem that celebrates some memorable villains from children's lit!

    http://cracklesofspeech.blogspot.com/2011/08/poetry-friday-nasty-characters.html

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  13. Hi,

    Thanks for hosting! I'm in with some Billy Collins this week:

    3-Year-Old Reciting Litany.

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  14. I'm back!

    At Blue Rose Girls, I have a school poem by Mary Ruefle titled "The Hand."

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  15. thanks for hosting, and for sharing the found treasures of books. i love finding little bits of history in library books as people unthinkingly chose random scraps for bookmarks. sadly, with printouts of items checked out through the self-serve system, most of what i am finding these days are these fading slips.

    i'm in this week with another movie poem. thanks again!

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  16. Hi, Dori, I especially liked the bazooka bubble gum card in Anne Sexton's Transformation. I can smell that bit of pinkness.

    I wrote about a visit to the Robert Frost Farm at http://jeannineatkins.livejournal.com/166084.html

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  17. Thanks, Dori!

    We celebrated our grand baby's "First Steps" @ The SWEET SWEET BABY blog

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  18. Thanks for hosting.
    My selection is "Birds of a Feather" poems by Jane Yolen with photographs by Jason Stemple.

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