The North 72: The Library Issue

From the Editorial:

When we pitched this theme, we envisaged a dozen or so good library poems in an issue of predominantly non-dewey decimal verse. In any event, we hope you agree that every poem in this special issue earns its place on the shelf, and that all told this particular (un)slim volume is a real page-turner. Not least because the poems go in surprising directions. We thought we’d get pretty much the same two or three poems, with at their heart the gratitude that libraries genuinely deserve – especially from people of our generation who grew up with no books in the house, and who were offered a whole new perspective from the window of 821.

[ … ]

There is more to be said about eg poetry as play, about non-directed reading, and about how absolutely necessary libraries have been to so many of us (who will understand for instance Jeanette Burton’s experience in her poem about discovering an early Bloodaxe anthology). And how libraries are perhaps even more than ever necessary in these times when books – and the life-changing experience of reading – are endangered by screens.

[ … ]

The poems here show something of all of that and of course so much more, indefinable as that is, as all poems are. Thank you again everyone. We hope you enjoy the Library Issue of The North.