The Rights of the Reader

50 Book Pledge | Book #25: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Rights of the Reader via Steph VanderMeulen of Bella’s Bookshelves

“Touch Me”

50 Book Pledge | Book #24: My Brother’s Book by Maurice Sendak

In honour of National Poetry Month, I present “Touch Me” from Collected Poems by Stanley Kunitz.

Summer is late, my heart.
Words plucked out of the air
some forty years ago
when I was wild with love
and torn almost in two
scatter like leaves this night
of whistling wind and rain.
It is my heart that’s late,
it is my song that’s flown.
Outdoors all afternoon
under a gunmetal sky
staking my garden down,
I kneeled to the crickets trilling
underfoot as if about
to burst from their crusty shells;
and like a child again
marveled to hear so clear
and brave a music pour
from such a small machine.
What makes the engine go?
Desire, desire, desire.
The longing for the dance
stirs in the buried life.
One season only,
and it’s done.
So let the battered old willow
thrash against the windowpanes
and the house timbers creak.
Darling, do you remember
the man you married? Touch me,
remind me who I am.

“Dreams”

50 Book Pledge | Book #23: The House Girl by Tara Conklin

In honour of National Poetry Month, I present “Dreams” from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes.

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

“The Moment”

50 Book Pledge | Book #22: We Live in Water by Jess Walter

In honour of National Poetry Month and Earth Day, on Monday, April 22, I present “The Moment” from Morning in the Burned House by Margaret Atwood.

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

“The Story of Old Women”

50 Book Pledge | Book #20: Killdeer by Phil Hall

In honour of National Poetry Month, I present “The Story of Old Women” from Sobbing Superpower: Selected Poems of Tadeusz Różewicz, translated by Joanna Trzeciak.

I like old women
ugly women
mean women

they are the salt of the earth

they are not disgusted by
human waste

they know the flipside
of the coin
of love
of faith

dictators clown around
come and go
hands stained
with human blood

old women get up at dawn
buy meat fruit bread
clean cook
stand on the street
arms folded silent

old women
are immortal

Hamlet flails in a snare
Faust plays a base and comic role
Raskolnikov strikes with an axe

old women
are indestructible
they smile knowingly

god dies
old women get up as usual
at dawn they buy bread wine fish
civilization dies
old women get up at dawn
open the windows
cart away waste
man dies
old women
wash the corpse
bury the dead
plant flowers
on graves

I like old women
ugly women
mean women

they believe in eternal life
they are the salt of the earth
the bark of a tree
the timid eyes of animals

cowardice and bravery
greatness and smallness
they see in their proper proportions
commensurate with the demands
of everyday life
their sons discover America
perish at Thermopylae
die on the cross

conquer the cosmos

old women leave at dawn
for the city to buy milk bread meat
season the soup
open the windows

only fools laugh
at old women
ugly women
mean women

because these beautiful women
kind women
old women
are like an ovum
a mystery devoid of mystery
a sphere that rolls on

old women
are mummies
of sacred cats

they’re either small
withered
dry springs
dried fruit
or fat
round buddhas

and when they die
a tear rolls down
a cheek
and joins
a smile on the face
of a young woman

“Hope is the thing with feathers”

50 Book Pledge | Book #19: Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility by Théodora Armstrong

In honour of National Poetry Month, I present “Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Web of Words: The End of Your Life Book Club

50 Book Pledge | Book #13: Dear Life by Alice Munro

I present a passage from Random House Canada‘s The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe.

That’s one of the amazing things great books like this do—they just don’t get you to see the world differently, they get you to look at people, the people around you, differently.