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Library News: June 7, 2024

Dear Reader:

If you are a regular reader of this article, you will know that Russell & District Regional Library frequently hosts events on Wednesday evenings in the Russell Library Gallery.  On May 29th, we held space for an event we call Candle Lit Poetry Reading.  While this is not the kind of event that results in standing room only attendance, at least not so far, we persist in having these poetry reading evenings because poetry has such great potential to create meaning and connection.  May 29th set out to be an evening event like so many others, groovy but not life altering.  And then Anonymous arrived, followed, shortly thereafter, by Veronica Havelange.  Let me just say this: “never underestimate the outcome of an event based on the number in attendance.”  I’m sure we have all heard how one person can change the world.  To be clear, I am not suggesting that the three of us changed the world.  However, Poetry changed three people for an hour at the Library Gallery.  Veronica began her reading of Seven Days by Gary Dunford1Seven Days is the kind of poem that can bring one to tears.  Next, Anonymous read Jim Harrison’s “Lost2.” “Lost” is about different things to different readers, I am sure.  When Anonymous finished reading, we were all silent.  And then, it was clear, this evening’s gathering was not by accident.  You see, Veronica has an elephant tattooed along then length of her shin and Harrison’s poem references an elephant.  Such a coincidence may seem inconsequential, but, for us three, these were signs.  We were where we were supposed to be.  Seven Days is bleak and apocalyptic, so is Lost, but in different ways.  We were awash in the profundity of poetry, so many questions making the air thick around us.  My choice of poem for the evening was one by Mary Oliver called How Would You Live Then?3  By this time, it seems safe to say, we were all wondering how we would live.  How should we live?  How could we live? Mary Oliver to the rescue with her poem about things more meaningful than gold.  That is when the serendipitous nature of the events that conspired to bring just us three to the Library Gallery that Wednesday evening became clear:  amongst the seagulls dying and the lost souls, there will always be a remnant left to reminds us of what is important.  Never give up, look up instead.

Please consider attending our next Russell Library Gallery event.  One never knows what will transpire then.

To enjoy the aforementioned poems in their entirety, please see footnotes below.

The following is a list of Binscarth Library books for your reading enjoyment, curated by Hilarie Recknel, Librarian.

Non-Fiction:

101 Essays The Will Change The Way You Think by Brianna West

Atomic Habits by James Clear

Fiction:

Where The Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah

Verity by Colleen Hoover

A Thousand Boy Kisses by Tillie Cole

Fantasy: 

A Court of Thornes and Roses series by Sarah J. Mass

Children’s Books:

Cuddle by Beth Shooshan 

I’ve Loved You Since Forever by Hoda Kotb

The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, And The Big Hungry Bear by Don & Audrey Woods 

For an excellent selection of books stop in and visit us in Binscarth Library and Russell Library.  For more information on any of our events, please contact the Russell Library at 204-773-3127 / ruslib@mymts.net or Binscarth Library at 204-532-2447 / binslb@mymts.net or message us on Facebook. Please visit our website at https://russell.mb.libraries.coop for more

information. 

Happy Reading, Until Next Time,

The Library Ladies

 

1Seven Days by Gary Dunford

in the beginning,
man created the mudhole and the marsh
    damming streams for viaducts
    and routing waters for his own benefit
        waters, white as crystal, moving through trenches
        trickling through makeshift reed piping
        splashing clean into clay bowls
        bubbling to do man’s bidding
   and it was the morning and the evening of the first day
   and the seagulls were dying

on the second day,
man created the slaughterhouse and the zoo
    and the wild animals of the earth
    which had wandered at will across the planet
       watched man from behind wire mesh
       scruffy lions with sad faces
       and elephants, their bottoms calloused from sitting on cement
   and it was the morning and the evening of the second day
   and the seagulls were dying

on the third day,
the buffalo disappeared. simply disappeared.
    and across the pampas
    safaris, $495 per person, sought out exotic creatures
    to mount in rec rooms or multiply in cages
        and the ice floes ran red
        and the jungle monkeys reeled in terror
    and it was the morning and the evening of the third day
    and the seagulls were dying

on the fourth day,
man created the sewer and sump
    and pumps to pipe sewer to sump and sump to sewer at incredible
    cost
        to nose and pocket
    and the pumps pumped
    and the sumps drained
    and the sewers flowed
    into creeks and lakes
    and every drop of sewage makes
    an ocean spreading across the world
    the universal apocalypse
and it was the morning and the evening of the fourth day
and the seagulls were dying

on the fifth day,
man crated and canned atomic wastes
and made up the word megaton
    packing the wastes in rusty old drums and concrete caissons
    cramming biological uglies into old trains
        that run on undetermined schedules
        across the landscape
and somewhere, sunken tanks of arsenic
are cloaked in barnacles
and rust slowly in salt water
and now and then, on october afternoons
underground explosions occur
and smiling spokesman describe them as necessary and safe
while desert floors collapse
and islands tremble
and the smiling spokesman says
    the san andreas fault
        remains faultless
and it is the morning and the evening of the fifth day
and the seagulls are dying

on the sixth day,
man created the additive
    which differed in name, but never in purpose
    and was gleefully installed in cereals and fertilizers
        soft drinks and cookies
        field and bug sprays
        creams and cosmetics
    it was added to everything man ate or drank
        was added to smokestacks
        and sewage
        and lakes
        and eventually,
        even the additives had additives
     and counter-antidotes to combat the counter-pollutants
     and even the experts gave up explaining
        exactly what the additives were to accomplish
     and it was the morning and the evening of the sixth day
     and the seagulls were dying

on the seventh day,
there was quiet over all the earth
   except for the lapping of waves
   and the bubbling of storm drains
       and the seagulls were dying
       and the plankton
       and the oceans
       and the atmosphere
       and the trees were dying
and man
    rested

2 Lost by Jim Harrison

When hunting I became lost,

I walked for hours.

All the ridges looked the same—

the snow had a thick crust

but not enough to hold my weight.

I crossed my path twice.

It began to get dark, my sweat

turned cold, when between two huge

charred pine stumps I thought I saw

myself. I raise my rifle to shoot

this ghost but then my father spoke.

 

3How Would You Live Then? by Mary Oliver

What if a hundred rose-breasted grosbeaks
     flew in circles around your head? What if
the mockingbird came into the house with you and
     became your advisor? What if
the bees filled your walls with honey and all
     you needed to do was ask them and they would fill
the bowl? What if the brook slid downhill just
     past your bedroom window so you could listen
to its slow prayers as you fell asleep? What if
     the stars began to shout their names, or to run
this way and that way above the clouds? What if
     you painted a picture of a tree, and the leaves
began to rustle, and a bird cheerfully sang
     from its painted branches? What if you suddenly saw
that the silver of water was brighter than the silver 
     of money? What if you finally saw
that the sunflowers, turning toward the sun all day
     and every day – who knows how, but they do it – were
more precious, more meaningful than gold?