POETRY FRIDAY

Last week, the ALA conference was in Denver. On Wednesday, Kate McClelland and Kathy Krasniewicz, YA librarians from Connecticut and leaders in ASLC,  were on their way to the airport when their cab was hit by a drunk driver. The cab rolled and both women were thrown out and killed.  I picture them at the conference, seeing old friends, sharing meals, poring over wonderful books, and I feel terribly that their visit to our city ended so badly. I imagine the teenagers at Perrot Library in Greenwich, Connecticut missing their book friends and mentors. I imagine families mourning wives, mothers, and grandmothers. I offer this poem in honor of all involved in this situation…

Do You Have Any Advice for Those of Us Just Starting Out?

Ron Koertge

Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.

And the perfect place in a library is near an aisle

where a child a year or two old is playing as his

mother browses the ranks of the dead.

Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.

The title, the author's name, the brooding photo

on the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, gray

book on brown, he builds a tower. And the higher 

it gets, the wider he grins.

You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower

falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody

in the world frowns and says, "Shhhh."

Then start again.

Read the whole poem here.

POETRY FRIDAY this week is at Adventures in Daily Living.