I want to seek some poems about reading or about books. Like the feeling for reading or describe this habit. Pls help, thanks.

-- clarinda wong (clarindawong@compress.com.hk), July 23, 1999

Answers

A nook and a book by William Freeland - 1887

Give me a nook and a book, And let the proud world spin round; Let it scramble by hook or by crook For wealth or a name with a sound. You are welcome to amble your ways, Aspirers to place or to glory; May big bells jangle your praise, And golden pens blazon your story! For me, let me dwell in my nook, Here by the curve of this brook, That croons to the tune of my book, Whose melody wafts me forever On the waves of an unseen river.

Give me a book and a nook Far away from the glitter and strife; Give me a staff and a crook, The calm and the sweetness of life; Let me pause - let me brood as I list, On the marvels of heaven's own spinning - Sunlight and moonlight and mist, Glorious without slaying or sinning. Vain world, let me reign in my nook, King of this kingdom, my book, A region by fashion forsook; Pass on, ye lean gamblers for glory, Nor mar the sweet tune of my story! ....................................... Books by Edgar A. Guest - Edgar Albert Guest(UK1881-1959)

Books are the land where friendly people dwell The happy land where loved ones never die; The young stay young, the old continue well, Howe'er neglected in the dust they lie.

Within the pages born of human thought We live again the battles men have fought, And share their glad romances, old and new, And tho we change, our books are always true. ...................................................................... The reading mother (I had a mother who read to me) by Strickland Gillilan - 1869-1954

from Best loved poems of the American people

I had a Mother who read to me Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea, Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth, Blackbirds stowed in the hold beneath.

I had a Mother who read me lays Of ancient and gallant and golden days; Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe, Which every boy has the right to know.

I had a Mother who read me tales Of Gelert the hound of the hills of Wales, True to his trust till his tragic death, Faithfulness blent with his final breath.

I had a Mother who read me things That wholesome life to the boy heart brings . . . Stories that stir with an upward touch, Oh, that each mother of boys were such!

You may have tangible wealth untold; Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I you can never be : I had a Mother who read to me. ............................................ The selfishness of the poetry reader ( sometimes I think I'm the only . . . ) by Dick Allen

Sometimes I think I'm the only man in America who reads poems and who walks at night in the suburbs, calling the moon names.

And I'm certain I'm the single man who owns a house with bookshelves, who drives to work without a CD player, taking the long way, by the ocean breakers.

No one else, in all America, quotes William Meredith verbatim, cites Lowell over ham and eggs, and Levertov, keeps Antiworlds and Ariel beside his bed.

Sometimes I think no other man alive is changed by poetry, has fought as utterly as I have over "Sunday Morning" and vowed to love those difficult as Pound.

No one else has seen a luna moth flutter over Iowa, or watched a woman's hand lift rainbow trout from water, and snow fall onto Minnesota farms.

This country wide, I'm the only man who spends his money recklessly on thin volumes unreviewed, enjoys the long appraising look of check-out girls.

How could another in America know why the laundry from a window laughs, and how plums taste, and what an auto wreck feels like and craft?

I think that I'm the only man who speaks of fur and limestone in one clotted breath, for whom Anne Sexton plunged in Grimm; who can't stop quoting haikus at some weekend guest.

The only man, in all America who feeds on something darker than his politics, who writes in margins and who earmarks pages in all America, I am the only man. ................................................ In the library ( speak low - tread softly ) by Anne C. L. Botts

Speak low - tread softly through these halls, Here genius lives enshrined, Here reign, in silent majesty, The monarchs of the mind.

A mighty spirit-host, they come From every age and clime, Above the buried wrecks of years The breast the tide of time.

And in their presence-chamber here, They hold their regal state, And round them throng a noble train, The gifted and the great.

-- ilza (ilza@pobox.com), July 23, 1999.