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.
May 29, 2015
This month for Poetry 365 we’re highlighting Erin Belieu’s savvy new volume Slant Six. Crisp and conversational, this fourth collection from the LA Times Book Prize finalist explores “politics, pop culture, and parenthood” while reflecting on “our collective moments of hypocrisy and hope” in contemporary America. Favorably compared to the work of Frank O’Hara and Tony […]
April 30, 2015
Time sure flies when you’re having fun. It’s hard to believe another National Poetry Month is already drawing to a close, but for one last hurrah, don’t miss this great mini-film adaptation of W.S. Merwin’s poem “Antique Sound.” Enjoy, and make sure to keep coming back to Off the Shelf for Poetry 365 – a great […]
April 30, 2015
To the Break of Dawn by Michael Robbins I wandered lonely as Jay-Z after the Fat Boys called it quits, before the rapper from Mobb Deep met up with the Alchemist. I wandered lonely all along The Watchtower’s office front in Dumbo, then across the bridge that tempts the bedlamite to song. From here you […]
April 29, 2015
Your Laughter by Pablo Neruda Take bread away from me, if you wish, take air away, but do not take from me your laughter. Do not take away the rose, the lance flower that you pluck, the water that suddenly bursts forth in joy, the sudden wave of silver born in you.
April 28, 2015
The Missing Person by Donald Justice He has come to report himself A missing person. The authorities Hand him the forms. He knows how they have waited With the learned patience of barbers In small shops, idle, Stropping their razors.
April 27, 2015
The World Is Too Much With Us by William Wordsworth The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;– Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The […]
April 25, 2015
Natural History by E.B. White The spider, dropping down from twig, Unwinds a thread of her devising: A thin, premeditated rig To use in rising. And all the journey down through space, In cool descent, and loyal-hearted, She builds a ladder to the place From which she started. Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do, […]
April 24, 2015
Novel by Arthur Rimbaud I. No one’s serious at seventeen. –On beautiful nights when beer and lemonade And loud, blinding cafes are the last thing you need –You stroll beneath green lindens on the promenade. Lindens smell fine on fine June nights! Sometimes the air is so sweet that you close your eyes; The wind […]
April 23, 2015
Sonnet XXV by William Shakespeare Let those who are in favor with their stars Of public honor and proud titles boast, Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars, Unlooked for joy in that I honor most. Great princes’ favorites their fair leaves spread But as the marigold at the sun’s eye; And in themselves […]
April 22, 2015
Patience by Rabindranath Tagore If thou speakest not I will fill my heart with thy silence and endure it. I will keep still and wait like the night with starry vigil and its head bent low with patience. The morning will surely come, the darkness will vanish, and thy voice pour down in golden streams […]
