The Main and the Robert Crown Branches of EPL will be closed Dec. 24th & Dec. 25th. We will reopen Dec. 26th for regular library hours.
April 10, 2013
Piano and Scene by David Berman A child needs to know the point of the holiday. . His aunt is saying grace over a decaffeinated coffee and her daughter is reading a Russian novel whose 45 chapters are set on 45 consecutive Valentine’s Days. . Grandpa is telling the kids fairy tales from Pennsylvania’s […]
April 9, 2013
Emplumada by Lorna Dee Cervantes When summer ended the leaves of snapdragons withered taking their shrill-colored mouths with them. They were still, so quiet. They were violet where umber now is. She hated and hated to see them go. Flowers . born when the weather was good – this she thinks of, watching the […]
April 8, 2013
Remembrance by M.J., a Warsaw ghetto poet (translated by Yala Korwin) You saw blood of the homeless and innocent. You heard the voices mocking them. You saw a beast jumping out of the crowd, Heard the laugh, looking into living eyes When smoke enveloped the silence Of other voices. . You came back to your […]
April 7, 2013
A Bookmark by Tom Disch Four years ago I started reading Proust. Although I’m past the halfway point, I still Have seven hundred pages of reduced Type left before I reach the end. I will Slog through. It can’t get much more dull than what Is happening now: he’s buying crepe-de-chine Wraps and a real, […]
April 6, 2013
“It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.” – William Carlos Williams
April 6, 2013
The Saddest Poem by Pablo Neruda I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. . Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” . The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. . I can write the saddest poem of all […]
April 5, 2013
Harriet by Robert Lowell A repeating fly, blueback, thumbthick–so gross, it seems apocalyptic in our house– whams back and forth across the nursery bed manned by a madhouse of stuffed animals, not one a fighter. It is like a plane dusting apple orchards or Arabs on the screen– one of the mighty… one of the […]
April 4, 2013
A Dictionary in the Dark by Naomi Shihab Nye A retired general said “the beautiful thing about it” discussing war. We were making “progress” in our war effort. “The appropriate time to launch the bombers” pierced the A section with artillery and arrows as “awe” huddled in a corner clutching its small chest. Someone else […]
April 3, 2013
The Angel by William Blake I dreamt a dream! What can it mean? And that I was a maiden Queen Guarded by an Angel mild: Witless woe was ne’er beguiled! . And I wept both night and day, And he wiped my tears away; And I wept both day and night, And hid from him […]
April 2, 2013
Happiness by Raymond Carver So early it’s still almost dark out. I’m near the window with coffee, and the usual early morning stuff that passes for thought. When I see the boy and his friend walking up the road to deliver the newspaper. They wear caps and sweaters, and one boy has a bag over […]
