As an editor of a poetry magazine, I have read thousands of poems in my nineteen years on the job, and not all of them are worth even the time it takes to read them. But then, there are these. These are the poems that changed my days, my ways, my life, or my mind.

4.10.2012

Thousand Books by Bill Yarrow

I gave away 1000 books.  Books I hunted.
Books I savored.  Books I cared for.
Books I marked.  Books I taught.
Books I browsed.  Books I amassed.
Books others gave me.  Books others
sold or abandoned.  Books I kept.

I stuffed them in collection bins,
filled discard shelves, solicited readers,
advertised them, offered them,
boxed them, marked them,
hawked them, mailed them,
promised them, carried them,
scattered them, delivered them.

Once I thought I was made of books.


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[first read on Thunderclap Press; available for free online]

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