Bibliothonus

Bibliothonus*

The stacks decay, the stacks decay and fall
McLuhan's drop their pages to the ground,
Kids come and plough the shelves for latest theories,
And after many summers wheels the cart
Me only cruel weeding
Consumes: I travel slowly through the ranges,
Here, at the mildewed edges of the tomes,
A weary shadow roaming through the P's,
The ever-crowded spaces of the T's,
Forgotten texts and gleaming postmodern manuals.
Alas! for these grey pages, once so thumbed-
So glorious in their printing and their pulp,
Who maddest faculty assigned, that they seem'd
To warrant copies wandering several editions
I ask'd thee 'Give me ten or twelve.'
Then dids't the acquisitions people smile,
Like wealthy men who care not how they give.
But scholarship indignant work'd its wills,
And left them and marr'd them and wasted them,
And tho' they could not deaccession them, made them futile
To dwell in the presence of shinier words,
Immortal age beside a crisper youth,
And all they were, in mold. Can thy pages,
Thy meaning, make amends, tho' even now,
I send you over, to the annex.

---

* Yet more evidence that yes, I amuse myself. This poem, based on Tennyson's Tithonus, was written for my head of collection development at Ohio University who, when I asked what format my annual bibliographer's report should be in, answered "rhyming couplets." I gave him some derivative blank verse instead.

The poem refers to a weeding project in which all bibliographers were selecting materials to be sent to off-site storage. My subject areas included telecommunications and interpersonal communication--thus the references to McLuhan and the P's and T's.

The original poem is about a man who married a goddess. He was granted a wish and asked for immortality, but forgot to ask for eternal youth to go with it. You can imagine the tragic results. I love the meter of this poem.

© Ellie Dworak