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News from the SC Stacks
By Nancy Davis
In April, the library featured Poetry library has some very good poetry books. Nancy is the representative for the
Month. Because of this program, I Look for classical poetry in Dewey 810 for Sun City Texas Library.
gained a new appreciation for poetry. I American poets such as Robert Frost and
had not seriously read poetry since college Edgar Allen Poe; 820 for the English poets He took his vorpal sword in hand;
days, when I took English Lit and slogged Keats and Browning; and 830 for classics Long time the manxome foe he sought -
through Old English and Middle English such as The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam. So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
versions of Beowulf, Chaucer’s Canterbury Also in 830 is a collection of world poetry And stood awhile in thought.
Tales, Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, and by many poets. For modern poems that And, as in uffish thought he stood,
the poetic dramas of Christopher Marlowe are not classics, try Dewey 812. The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
and William Shakespeare. What I enjoyed Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
about the class was the professor. She There are poems that are part of American And burbled as it came!
was a tiny elderly lady who had probably culture that we don’t usually recognize as One, two! One, two! And through and
been teaching literature for more than poems. For instance, in The Road Not through
50 years. I loved to listen to her recite Taken, Robert Frost writes: The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
Chaucer and Shakespeare from memory, He left it dead, and with its head
even when I did not understand the Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – He went galumphing back.
words. Reading poetry, especially aloud, I took the one less traveled by, “And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
is an acquired skill. Although different And that has made all the difference. Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
than prose, it does tell a story and evoke O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
emotion. Usually the thoughts expressed Or Edna St. Vincent Millay’s brief lines: He chortled in his joy.
are condensed into a few lines but give the ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
reader much to ponder. I had not learned My candle burns at both ends; Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
that years ago, but now I think I am It will not last the night; All mimsy were the borogoves,
finally more mature and can appreciate But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends- And the mome raths outgrabe.
poetry much more. It gives a lovely light!
I did read poetry after college but called One of my very favorite poems is the
it nursery rhymes and children’s stories. Jabberwocky, from Lewis Carroll’s
My two children loved to hear the Dr. Through the Looking-Glass. I find it fun
Seuss stories. I also read Dr. Seuss to to recite the nonsensical words found
my grandchildren. Dr. Seuss especially within its lines:
had a way with poetry that did not seem
like poetry, and those stories were fun to ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
read aloud. Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
If you are interested in reading poetry, our And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
The Best Loved Poems To Selected Poems The Complete Poetical Walking Through The Years
Read Again & Again by John Keats Works of Burns Poetry for Life And Love
T. Craig Smith
Compiled by Mary Sanford Cambridge Edition
Laurence
ONLINE: SCTEXAS.ORG
42 | SUNRAYS AUGUST 2016
