reader's advisory

Final Week of National Poetry Month

Reader’s Den friends, we’ve come to the fourth and final installment of our month-long celebration of verse. I give you a poem from fellow New Yorker Don Marquis, originally published in 1915. Check out discussion questions after the break, and post comments!

SO LET THEM PASS, THESE SONGS OF MINE
by Don Marquis

So let them pass, these songs of mine,
Into oblivion, nor repine;
Abandoned ruins of large schemes,
Dimmed lights adrift from nobler dreams,

Still shall I struggle, fail, aspire,
Lose God, and find Gods in the mire,
And drink dream-deep life's heady wine--
So let them pass, these songs of mine.

Questions to Inspire Discussion:  read more »

Week 2 of National Poetry Month: Seeing Things

The Reader’s Den is the NYPL’s online book discussion forum, but during the month of April we’re all about poetry. This week’s poem, City Visions, was chosen with a view to celebrating Immigrant Heritage Week, which starts April 17. It was written by the same poet whose words grace the Statue of Liberty (“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses…”).

CITY VISIONS by Emma Lazarus

I.

As the blind Milton's memory of light,
The deaf Beethoven's phantasy of tone,
Wrought joys for them surpassing all things known
In our restricted sphere of sound and sight,—
So while the glaring streets of brick and stone
Vex with heat, noise, and dust from morn till night,
I will give rein to Fancy, taking flight
From dismal now and here, and dwell alone
With new-enfranchised senses. All day long,
Think ye 't is I, who sit 'twixt darkened walls,
While ye chase beauty over land and sea?
Uplift on wings of some rare poet's song,
Where the wide billow laughs and leaps and falls,
I soar cloud-high, free as the the winds are free.  read more »

Week 1: Isn’t it Romantic?

Welcome to Poetry Month with the Reader’s Den! Instead of the normal online book discussion this month, each Wednesday we'll post a poem for consideration and discussion. Feel free to use the questions below the poem as a springboard. Post your insights and impressions in the comments, and be sure to check back later in the week to see what others thought.

We begin with a poem by John Keats, composed in the year 1818.

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

Discussion Questions:

1. What are the narrator’s strongest fears?

2. Grain, stars, clouds, shadows, shore…why all the nature imagery?

3. How would you interpret the concluding lines?

Continue exploring this poem with a glossary and more:  read more »

In honor of the Oscar awards that took place this past Sunday, I thought I'd share some Hollywood drama in the fiction form. The following novels are set in Hollywood, California and cover various themes. From satire to mystery, these novels capture the Hollywood essence.

In Charles Bukowski's Hollywood, Henry Chinaski gets caught in celebrity Hollywood as he writes his screenplay, "The Dance of Jim Bean."
 
 
 
 
After a nervous breakdown, Maria Wyeth reminisces on her days as a frustrated actress in Joan Didion's Play it as it Lays.
 
 
 
 
What's Hollywood without its wild parties? In Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis, Clay finds himself in the California party scene, but after some disturbing events decides he needs to leave.
 
 
 
Based on true details from a 1947 unsolved murder, The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy is a page-turning mystery that will have you on the edge of your seat. Bucky Belichert is out to solve this brutal murder and investigates the whereabouts of his missing partner.
 
 
No other novel captures Hollywood like Nathanael West's 1939 classic, The Day of the Locust. Artist Todd Hackett works as a set and costume designer in Hollywood, while meeting a host of strange characters that he hopes to include in his painting, "The Burning of Los Angeles."
 

These titles can be requested by visiting the LEO catalog or contacting your local branch.

At the age of ten, I was drawn to a particular copy of Moby Dick that my grandmother kept on her bookshelf. Its binding was made of blue and red leather with gold lettering. I was determined to read this book and so at my young age I sat on her bed and dove into the first page. "Call me Ishmael." About an hour later, I woke up. Rather than continue reading, I decided to steal the book from her shelf and finish it at a later time. Fifteen years later, I still have yet to read Herman Melville's Moby Dick and no one has ever questioned the mysterious disappearance of my grandmother's copy.

Recently I picked up In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick, which documents the tragic sinking of the Whaleship Essex that inspired Melville's Moby Dick. Philbrick does an excellent job of describing the life of whalers not only aboard the Essex, but the hard life of a whaler during the nineteenth century as well. While this book might not be for the faint of heart (his descriptions of starvation are very graphic) or for the reader who is about to take up sailing, this may be just the read for those who are interested in history with a taste of adventure and heroics. It is also a very fast read as the writing is clear and not overwhelming with nautical jargon. And while In the Heart of the Sea and Moby Dick are closely connected together, I was also reminded of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Normally I'm the type of reader who chooses fiction over non-fiction. I may take up an historical fiction novel and then later read a related non-fiction work for more information, but this is the first time that I'm doing the reverse. In the Heart of the Sea, by Nathaniel Philbrick, has inspired me to once again revisit my grandmother's copy of Moby Dick.

Further Reading:

* In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
* The Loss of the Ship Essex, Sunk by a Whale: First-Person Accounts
* Moby Dick, or, The Whale by Herman Melville (Try downloading the eBook or audiobook!)
* The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

These titles can be found at the Mulberry Street Branch Library or reserved online.