Hello! In 2022, when a notoriously horrid Twitter account targeted our local library, I realized that my family and I had checked out tens of thousands of dollars worth of books for our son -- that we used the library more than any other public service. Since then I've been exploring the library and realizing the depth and diversity of what's available there, a maker's space, several conference rooms, a Nintendo Switch, and of course books of many kinds, in many languages. And I learned that the library is supported meaningfully by regular citizens through direct donations. Last year I was a donor and this year hopefully you and I will both donate.

I haven't decided yet what to read for the Readathon at the end of April, so I'll be posting videos of the poems I find (I like poems) in the stacks at TCPL. Sorry I have to whisper, it's a quiet library! Let me know if you like something or if there's a poem you'd like me to read. I started where lots of American poetry readers start, with Emily Dickinson.

I really like this poet Wang Ao, and the TCPL has a good anthology of Chinese contemporary poetry. Here is "The Crab I Fell in Love With," tr. Daniel Bryant.

As long as we're talking about sea creatures, I found this lovely little piece in the stacks, I had never read any Jim Harrison before:

I was also impressed and pleased to find a pretty good early 20th century Chinese poet in the TCPL in Chinese, in a Taiwanese edition (notice that it opens right-to-left). If you don't speak Chinese, don't worry, I translate it at the end:

We hit 50% of the goal yesterday, thank you to Ivanna who put us over $250. In celebration, here's a fun one by Eileen Myles, I tried to read it to make it clear how it feels on the page and how weird it is:

The weird thing about wandering through the stacks is that right after you read a silly one, you might find a pretty dark one, like this poem by Charles Simic:

Last poem for now, if you got this far down the page, here's a scary/sexy one: