Quote of the Day

Must share today's inspiration.

Ah, Wallace Stevens. Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.

Reminding me of an afternoon spent with my friend Ivy, 

having lunch and strolling along the New York Public library walk. 

Something to look forward to when I return next month!

Library Walk

I've been to the New York Public Library a gazillion times.

I never knew this existed.

A short street, right in front of the 5th Avenue entrance.

 My friend Ivy and I discovered it while strolling on a gorgeous fall day.
For those of you considering making a stop at this delightful exhibit:  

THE ABC OF IT, Why Children's Books Matter,
be sure to make the side trip down a side street and read the quotations.

CLICK HERE for an interesting piece, recently published in The Nation, on the exhibit.

Love the story of the little girl, possibly not even two, in the exhibit with her mom.
I also loved the library cards when I saw them. Especially Eudora Welty's and Anne Carroll Moore's. Unlike that child, I did not consider making paper airplanes.

But back to the Library Walk.
Both sides of the street are lined with wonderful quotations. Here are a few.

Lucille Clifton. Sigh. Baltimore poet laureate. Love her.

  (Yes, a favorite poem. I know, I know...)

A Poem to End Poetry Month

Just because April has ended, we don't have to stop reading poetry. And because I like the poems of Wallace Stevens, and because talented kids' book writer Jo Knowles wrote such a thoughtful blogpost about this one, I'll share it here, putting an exclamation point at the end of Poetry Month. Vowing to read more, all year round.



The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm
By Wallace Stevens

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.