This post is part of 805's “My Home Library” series that features writers and artists enjoying their home libraries.
My books spill out along the spreading shelves,
Proclaiming each my literary bent
For memoir, novel, poetry, and art,
Kids’ books, and travel; of none do I repent.
So varied, yet related through their form,
Containing truth and wisdom, while they’ve sought
To make of me a citizen well-read
Through imagery, philosophy, and thought.
My friends dePaola, Keltz, Kirkpatrick, Tan,
Jane Austen, Cleary, Boynton, and Alcott.
The list goes on and grows with each new find:
Collins, Smiley, Tyler, Sacks, LaMott…
Each a companion capturing my mind who
Would sate my thirst for meaning in their words
L’Engle, Sendak, Durrell, Whitely, Sayer,
Peterson, Heyer, Penney, Borg, Rendell…
I could go on and on and on and on
To live without them, what would be the point?
A life unread, unthought, unwritten, dull,
I know that I could never be content
Without those volumes filling up my space
That indicate to me a life well spent.
Kathleen Joy Anderson is a retired elementary school librarian who has always loved poetry but has only begun to write poems in the past five years. She is a voracious and wide-ranging reader but especially enjoys British detective novels and authors' memoirs.