When this book is mould,
And a book of many
Waiting to be sold
For a casual penny,
In a little open case,
In a street unclean and cluttered,
Where a heavy mud is spattered
From the passing drays,
Stranger, pause and look;
From the dust of ages
Lift this little book,
Turn the tattered pages,
Read me, do not let me die!
Search the fading letters, finding
Steadfast in the broken binding
All that once was I!
From "The Poet and His Book"
Edna St. Vincent Millay
This poem I found in a book that was actually falling apart with tattered pages and a broken binding. I salvaged the tiny poetry volume in a pile of free books outside the Reg. As expected the selection there was poor but I was a first year and did not yet know that. But the search yielded me a couple of quaint books that I honestly took only because they were pretty, not too heavy and written by a poet I wanted to read.
After years of neglect, I picked up the two volumes again. I Read the book of sonnets first because it was shorter. And now this tiny blue book of lyrics have become a close friend. It's almost too scary to read the book though. It was a cheap volume even back when it was published: a 50 cent volume in the 50s for the masses. The paper is beyond yellow, the beginning few pages have already broken off, and the little pieces of papers from the cover peels off into my hands every time I read the book. I am not particularly kind to books. I like to "break them in" as to make them unique. But this time I've been careful. I don't even carry it around with me anymore on the buses and trains with my metrocard and things. but still, the book feels like it's disintegrating in my hands and that reminds me I unfortunately cannot do what the poet asks me forever: Read me, do not let me die!
Yes, I am reading it now, but I can't commit to its preservation. The poems that touch my young idealistic and naive soul may be repulsive in a few years. and even if I let this book, salvaged for less than a penny, be my companion for life, I will die. And if I can't prevent my own death, how can I prevent hers?
It brings me joy to own books. I like books... the paper, the font, the smell, and how it feels on my hands. But am I secretly enjoying keeping a cemetery of ideas? Because after all, writing is a way of preserving a thought, a way of mummifying an idea in the hopes that the product of the moment will outlive the creator.
So I am a memory keeper and my job is to let the writers live.
But I am not the first. Some books I buy from a bookstore and I am their first parent. But I tend to also inherit books because the previous owners who can no longer do the job. I have inherited books from strangers and friends, from people alive and dead.
The burden of a bookowner is a onerous and grave: keep ephemeral thoughts alive and bound. So I wonder, who will inherit my books? Will my granddaughter knit a pair of gloves from my knitting book and think how old fashioned and cool the designs are? If some young person inherits my books, is the memory of a college course a book and I took together, and the memory of our despair as a book and I comforted each other going to live beyond me?
If I want to not die, must I write or own books?
For now, I will continue to stare at my bookshelves, a display of no longer existing thoughts. Last weekend, I was out by the sea with my dad and saw the many stars. Though the sparkles came from long ago, perhaps from stars no longer alive, they were present fascinations for me. So the thoughts that occurred in virginia woolf decades ago, or a poem bought but not yet read are waiting to be discovered by me, the stargazer. Having those potential discoveries is what it means to be alive.
After years of neglect, I picked up the two volumes again. I Read the book of sonnets first because it was shorter. And now this tiny blue book of lyrics have become a close friend. It's almost too scary to read the book though. It was a cheap volume even back when it was published: a 50 cent volume in the 50s for the masses. The paper is beyond yellow, the beginning few pages have already broken off, and the little pieces of papers from the cover peels off into my hands every time I read the book. I am not particularly kind to books. I like to "break them in" as to make them unique. But this time I've been careful. I don't even carry it around with me anymore on the buses and trains with my metrocard and things. but still, the book feels like it's disintegrating in my hands and that reminds me I unfortunately cannot do what the poet asks me forever: Read me, do not let me die!
Yes, I am reading it now, but I can't commit to its preservation. The poems that touch my young idealistic and naive soul may be repulsive in a few years. and even if I let this book, salvaged for less than a penny, be my companion for life, I will die. And if I can't prevent my own death, how can I prevent hers?
It brings me joy to own books. I like books... the paper, the font, the smell, and how it feels on my hands. But am I secretly enjoying keeping a cemetery of ideas? Because after all, writing is a way of preserving a thought, a way of mummifying an idea in the hopes that the product of the moment will outlive the creator.
So I am a memory keeper and my job is to let the writers live.
But I am not the first. Some books I buy from a bookstore and I am their first parent. But I tend to also inherit books because the previous owners who can no longer do the job. I have inherited books from strangers and friends, from people alive and dead.
The burden of a bookowner is a onerous and grave: keep ephemeral thoughts alive and bound. So I wonder, who will inherit my books? Will my granddaughter knit a pair of gloves from my knitting book and think how old fashioned and cool the designs are? If some young person inherits my books, is the memory of a college course a book and I took together, and the memory of our despair as a book and I comforted each other going to live beyond me?
If I want to not die, must I write or own books?
For now, I will continue to stare at my bookshelves, a display of no longer existing thoughts. Last weekend, I was out by the sea with my dad and saw the many stars. Though the sparkles came from long ago, perhaps from stars no longer alive, they were present fascinations for me. So the thoughts that occurred in virginia woolf decades ago, or a poem bought but not yet read are waiting to be discovered by me, the stargazer. Having those potential discoveries is what it means to be alive.
