November 29th 2011

As I stated last time, I have a past with literature. My literature obsession is so huge that I actually had a professor who would pick on me for my adoration of the Romantics, who I still adore by the way.    Now before I was lured to the dark side of studying history, when I had that brief affair with literature (secretly... we still see each other, please don't tell the wars that, they get jealous), I had a particular love for poetry.  
So... for my book of the day, which is book number 5 or so on the closest of my 9 bookshelves is a little more artsy.

This is one of multiple collections of Eliot's poetry in my possession.  I usually HATE modern poetry... I will spare you my diatribe against The Red Wheelbarrow because if you know me... you've heard it.  That being said, I adore Eliot completely.  He was a modernist, but his words tinged on the Romantic now and again and his imagery, especially after 1920, when the entire world had changed, just amazing.   This particular edition, I picked up in Dublin, Ireland in an old bookshop.  What I adored about that shop, right off the main street of Dublin which is bricked and covered with old buildings and flower vendors galore (yes I was in heaven), was the fact that along with this small paperback version of Eliot's poetry.... they also had first editions of Eliot and Wilde and Joyce...you can imagine, I had a small heart attack before purchasing this as a little reminder of the wonderful shop where I was able to see such beautiful things.




"In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home."


-What the Thunder Said p.66