Essential Words by Joan Leotta (PRIME MOVERS Series)

Essential Words
by Joan Leotta

When the pandemic closed this county’s library buildings, our librarians still went to work to keep the internet “fires burning” so that those in our area without service could access signals from the parking lot—a literal beacon in Covid’s storm. Essential workers with no contact allowed. No checking out books permitted—at first.

My own bookshelf provided solace in a broad range of offerings for rereading—meetings with old friends that took me to Italy, to the West, to the past—on wings of words, trips not even Covid could cancel.

I began to read and borrow books online, in spite of eye difficulties with computer reading. At last, drive-up service came. We can now roll up to the door, call inside, and Kim or Christie or another librarian, pops out, books in hand. These angels with book carts know us, and often add items to our requests—things we might enjoy, things we may have found if we had browsed or talked with them.

The hallowed halls of my branch where shelves of books take the place of treasured frescoes are made holy by the ministrations of our librarians. The books themselves are secondary. Book clubs can continue by zoom, but the librarians are the beating heart of what makes the library my happy place. Books are important, but it’s the encouraging words (and actions) of our librarians that have been, are, and will be essential during and after the pandemic.

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: This photo is of the two librarians (Kim WIlson, left, and Christi Iffergan) that I interact with most at the SW Branch of the Brunswick Library system here in Brunswick County, North Carolina.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This is more of an homage than prose poem or vignette—a cheer for the librarians who have kept up the sense of community here in rural Brunswick County with their unfailing attention to individuals—expressed as best they could (in emails, in calls) even when the library was closed, and as it opened, like a flowering bud, provided more and more of the aroma of kindness that is essential to all human life. Our librarians are great!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: When she is not playing with words on page or stage, Joan Leotta loves nothing more than sitting at table or walking the beach, laughing and talking with family. She spins poems, articles, essays, short stories, and performance pieces most often around her core interests—food, family, nature, travel, and strong women. Her poetry books include  Languid Lusciousness with Lemon (Finishing Line Press), Nature’s Gifts from Stanzaic Stylings (free online), and a mini-book from origami poems (free, but also printable). Another short collection will be released by Origami in 2020. Visit her at joanleotta.wordpress.com and on Facebook.

A Memory Palace by J.P. Slote (LANDMARKS Series)

A Memory Palace
by J.P. Slote

The impression is of a huge stone pile, a palace of white marble blocks stacked by a giant child from a race of giants. There are bigger buildings, taller atriums in this city, but inside the entrance hall of the New York Public Library’s Manhattan Main Branch on 5th Avenue and 42nd Street, one is awed by the massiveness of the entire endeavor.

The eye is deceived—distance is skewed. Tiny little faces of people peer down from behind the stone railings of the stone balcony above; the ant-like proportions of people climbing up and down the massive stone stairs at the two ends of the stone chamber; the massive stone arches through which tiny modern people enter and exit. Escher’s impossible logic—simultaneously ascending and descending, coming and going—materializes for a surreal instant.

Other senses are affected. Sounds are both muffled and amplified—whirr of two archaic fans posted like tall sentinels on either side of the open entrance door (so mid-20th century). The ripeness of bright summer heat blowing in, unfiltered, from the city smells archaic in the vast, hushed, and darkened interior. The ear loses its bearings: echoes echo off stone—through the arches, around the pillars, down the staircases, along corridors seen and unseen.

The enormous hall puts one into an odd associative or dissociative state of mind. Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul. A line of poetry (“The Chambered Nautilus,” Oliver Wendell Holmes) floats to the surface of the mind, from a children’s book (The Diamond in the Window, Jane Langton) read long ago about a brother and sister trapped in a dream, in a seashell, by the ocean’s shore, who discover the doors to their many-chambered prison open as they recite lines of poetry. Ever-grander sentiments release them into ever-grander chambers—until they tumble out onto the sand just in time to escape the rising tide.

A mausoleum, a memory palace, built to hold, encompass interiority (thought, dream, memory, desire). The space is real, finite, concrete—but the dream is illusive and infinite.

PHOTO: New York Public Library, Main Branch, by Vitaly Edush, used by permission.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: A few years ago, I did a summer seminar at The Cullman Center Institute for Teachers, an enrichment program for New York city public school teachers of humanities. My cohort met every morning in The Cullman Center’s offices inside the New York Public Library’s Main Branch on 5th Avenue and 42nd Street to work with a Cullman Writing Fellow, reading and discussing a wide variety of creative nonfiction, and in turn writing pieces of our own. Our first assignment was to choose a location in the building and describe it fully. “A Memory Palace” is the result.

PHOTO: The author inside the New York Public Library, Main Branch.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: J.P. Slote is a poet, actor, and educator. Co-founder of Loretta Auditorium, a collaboration of theatre artists, she is the author of Loretta Auditorium Presents The Body of Loretta, three plays on the pornography of power, free will on the free market, and arousal in the public realm, published by Fly by Night Press and soon to be available at www.tribes.org. A native New Yorker, She lives and works on the Lower East Side, the neighborhood of her immigrant grandparents, where she teaches literature and writing to a new generation of young adult immigrants.

Happy 70th birthday, Keith Richards

When you are growing up, there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you.” KEITH RICHARDS 

Happy Dec. 18th birthday to Keith Richards — a bibliophile whose his first career choice was to become a librarian, according to his his memoir Life (2011), available at Amazon.com.

Photo: Keith Richards relaxing in his home library.

I Discovered Me in the Library, Quote by Ray Bradbury

“I am a librarian. I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library. Before I fell in love with libraries, I was just a six-year-old boy. The library fueled all of my curiosities, from dinosaurs to ancient Egypt. When I graduated from high school in 1938, I began going to the library three nights a week. I did this every week for almost ten years and finally, in 1947, around the time I got married, I figured I was done. So I graduated from the library when I was twenty-seven. I discovered that the library is the real school.”

        RAY BRADBURY, novelist, screenwriter, and short story writer (1920-2012)

Photo: Ray Bradbury at the Palms-Rancho Park Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library, located at 2920 Overland Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90064. In the photo, he is wearing the medal he received in 2007 from the France Minister of Culture as Commandeur, Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Photo by Gary.

Libraries Are a Mainstay of My Life, Quote by James A. Michener

“Public libraries have been a mainstay of my life. They represent an individual’s right to acquire knowledge; they are the sinews that bind civilized societies the world over. Without libraries, I would be a pauper, intellectually and spiritually.”

          JAMES A. MICHENER (1907-1997), Pulitzer Prize winning author of Tales of the South Pacific (basis of the Rogers & Hammerstein musical South Pacific). A prolific author of fiction of nonfiction, Michener worked up to the time of his death at age 90.

Photo: James A. Michener at work in his home office.

The Library Belongs to You, Quote by Keith Richards

“When you are growing up, there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you.” KEITH RICHARDS 

Many of you have heard the story of how Keith Richards was injured a few years ago when he reached for a book about Leonardo da Vinci in his home library and the bookcase fell on him. What many people don’t know is that Richards is a bibliophile and his first career choice was to become a librarian — according to his his memoir Life (2011), available at Amazon.com.

Full Disclosure: I am a dedicated Rolling Stones fan…

Photo: Keith Richards relaxing in his home library  (they’re his books, so it’s his business if he smokes).

A Library Is a Good Place to Go, Quote by E.B. White

“A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people — people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.” E.B. WHITE, author of Charlotte’s Web

Love Letter to Libraries

As a result of a recent research project, I opened a library account in the Glendale/Pasadena, California, System. I was surprised that L.A. residents could gain access to materials from outlying libraries without paying a fee – so took advantage of Glendale’s policy of not charging for inter-library loans (I needed to borrow a volume of poetry from a university library).

While returning the book yesterday, I noticed an extensive section of DVDs. Since I don’t get to Glendale on a regular basis, I at first thought it would be impractical to borrow DVDs (which in most libraries need to be returned within two days – with a three DVD limit). On impulse, I asked the library assistant how many DVDs I could take out and how for how long I could borrow them. I thought I was hearing things incorrectly – or the person hadn’t heard my question, so I asked for the information a couple of times until I believed it.

The Glendale/Pasadena library system allows you to take out 12 DVDs (yes, a full dozen) and keep them for 7 days! The library had hundreds of DVDs on the shelves, but if patrons have up to 12 at home, I wonder how many DVDs  are in the collection.  I also learned that the library allows you to borrow up to 100 books at any given time!

All this is by way of saying thank you to the Glendale/Pasadena Library System!

I must also take a moment to thank the Los Angeles Public Library and its fine workers for all of their help and courtesy related to my high volume borrowing – and for sending my requested books from library to library for pick up. As someone who makes a living through research and ghostwriting (and certainly not publishing), I am often at my limit of 30 books borrowed. To all LAPL workers, I am in your debt. You are wonderful! My deepest appreciation!

In fact, thank you to all the libraries of the world!

As Ray Bradbury said, “Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.”

In a New York Times article from June 19, 2009 (“A Literary Legend Fights for a Local Library”),  Bradbury (1920-2012) stated:  “Libraries raised me. I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”

We miss you, Ray — and we heart you, too!

Illustration: “I Heart Libraries” button from the good folks at Zazzle.com.