"Call Numbers of the Wild" Read by the Author

"Call Numbers of the Wild" was first published in Haggard & Halloo August 17, 2010. (You can still find it there and comment! See my publications, below.) The link is to my amazing YouTube performance of it. Enjoy!

I wrote this poem in response to the dizzying sense of vertigo I would feel when assigned to reshelving on my library shift at my alma mater, Wheaton College (Massachusetts, people, not Illinois). If you look around on the site a little, I'm sure you can find a picture of the pond in the poem. (It's much smaller than its psychological impact would have one believe.) Most of the stacks at the main library are underground, some underneath the science building, some abutting it, leaving tantalizing locked doorways in the farthest reaches. Sometimes the librarians would actually take book trucks outside and through the science building in order to get to an elevator that was closer to that far back area, and magically unlock the doors to gain access to where they really needed to be. While not circular, that library was dark and made of concrete and easily lent itself to interpretations of infinity a la "The Library of Babel" by Jorge Luis Borges. So I dedicate this poem to the spirit of librarians everywhere. Order in the chaos!