University libraries, at least some, still take books, but it's a slowly losing game Max.
And that's sad.
But keep the papers for the time being, eh?
An hour a week sounds about right, & sounds here...
Doug
On Mar 25, 2014, at 8:03 PM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Self-Storage
>
>
> For her weekly hour or so
> of therapy - digging out
> old hurts, seeking strength,
> I drop her off in plush Brighton.
>
> Flat Moorabbin's further on.
> I check myself in at spartan
> Spot On Storage where we rent
> two padlocked cubes, packed deep.
>
> Here in cardboard cartons
> piled high is my paper past,
> mostly reading matter, books,
> letters, lecture-scripts, notes.
>
> I have an hour to search,
> a lifetime to suss out -
> reminders, surprises,
> old heartbreak, old losses.
>
> An hour is not enough -
> well, an hour a week so far
> has got me past bucketsful
> of over-brewed nostalgia
>
> into projects aborted,
> dreams flowered then fouled up,
> hopeful relationships faded.
> Was nothing completed?
>
> Had I read all these books,
> what a know-all I'd be!
> Why keep them still? boxed!
> Let them burden whomever
>
> I can foist them off on.
> But these days, book addicts
> are few; dealers, libraries - tight.
> As for my notebooks, letters,
>
> burn them? bury them?
> all that wishful thinking,
> old hurts. No self-therapist,
> I padlock my self-storage again.
>
Douglas Barbour
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http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
Latest books:
Continuations & Continuations 2 (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=962
Recording Dates
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How white the gulls
in grey weather
Soon April
the little
yellows
Lorine Niedecker
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