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April 18, 2005
One and Twenty
I have have this little book I originally bought for $4.95 at a book store in a small beach town in Washington about 25 years ago. It has a lovely burgundy sueded cover and is called A Treasury of the World's Best Loved Poems. The last time I looked at it was at least seven years and four major moves ago when I decided that everything in it was too sad to read. If I have learned nothing else in my college career, I have learned that sad poems aren't about sorrrow, necessarily.
Anyway, I took it down tonight because a line from a poem I was sure was in it was in my head, and I wanted to read the whole thing. Guess what? That poem isn't in this volume. I know I have it. I'm just not at all sure where it is now. But in reviewing this book, I realized again how much valuable literature I have had on my shelves all these years, and only in the last six have I learned why it's valuable or "how" to read any of it. This little volume is suddenly worth much more to me than it ever was.
As for the poem I thought I would find there, it is actually available here.
Posted by cageyer at April 18, 2005 10:15 PM