Goodie bags with a surprise for staff

Everyone who picked up a dessert/surprise bag from the Thornton Room today found a poem enclosed in the bag.  I had a lot of fun selecting them and making copies to share with you (there were 6 bags still waiting for someone to take them home when I left the Thornton Room, please get yours if you missed out).  “Don’t Go Into the Library” was one of my favorites (below), and I’ll post two more next week.  I hope you enjoyed the one you got!  This is from the compilation Books and Libraries: Poems,  Andrew D. Scrimgeour (editor).  Everyman’s Library, Blackwell’s.  2021.

DON’T GO INTO THE LIBRARY

The library is dangerous –
Don’t go in.  If you do

You know what will happen.
It’s like a pet store or a bakery –

Every single time you’ll come out of there
Holding something in your arms.

Those novels with their big eyes and wagging tails.
Those non-nonsense, all-muscle Dobermans,

All nonfiction and business,
Cuddly when they’re young.

But then the first page is turned and no turning back.
And those sleek, fast, beautiful greyhounds: poems.

The doughnut scent of it all, knowledge,
The aroma of coffee being made

In all those books, something for everyone,
The deli offerings of civilization itself.

The library is the book of books,
Its concrete and wood and glass covers

Keeping within them the very big
Very long story of everything.

The library is dangerous, full
Of answers.  If you go inside,

You may not come out
The same person who went in.

–Alberto Rios