[John Whitworth]

Welll really we ought to be able to do this. Though I don't think I have anything in the locker, as it were, and will have to write it from scratch, as it were.

No. 2812 BOOKISH

You are invited to submit a poem celebrating bookshops (16 lines maximum). Please email entries, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 21 August.

[Ann Drysdale]

That's almost a direct dare...

Between Dryden and Duffy

That’s where I look in every one of them -
Ottakar’s, Hammick’s, Hatchard’s, Waterstone’s.
Finding my books displayed in none of them
Do I descend to star-defeated moans?
Not I! With an assumed shortsighted stoop on,
I check the coast is clear to right and left.
Then, with a Waitrose bag held slightly open
As if in readiness for petty theft,
I make my hand into a living axe
Which parts the volumes at a single stroke.
Then, with my fingers, I enlarge the cracks
And slip one in, like an unscripted joke.
Booksellers do not view this with delight;
It wrecks their paperwork. And serves them right.

[John Whitworth]

I always liked that one, Ann. A winner.

Now here, absolutely new...


Bookshops

In Whitstable there is a shop.
I pass it every week,
Yet do not pass. I pause. I stop.
And some humungous lollipop,
Candyfloss cloud or acid drop,
At just a pound or two a pop,
Is never far to seek.

Second-hand books – bizarre bazaar
Of well remembered names!
I riffle through your repertoire,
My marzipan, montelimar,
Vast, everlasting chocolate bar:
Robert Graves, Idries Shah,
Ruth Rendell, P.D. James,

P.G. Wodehouse, J.L. Carr
And all the long etcetera ...

[Ann Drysdale]

Ah, yes, J L Carr ... but that was York, not Whitstable. Forgive an old woman her treasured memories...

[Brian Allgar]

Good ones, Ann & John.

Speaking of theft (as Ann was), here's me own stab at the thing. (Yes, there are a couple of off rhymes, but something may come to me.)

An Oxford student, hungry as a horse,
I needed ways to supplement my grant.
The bookshop in the Broad became a source
Of more than intellectual nourishment.

I’d loiter there, just browsing, and pull down
The most expensive book that I could see,
Then, tucking it beneath my scholar’s gown
I’d leave the building, whistling casually.

Outside, I’d nip across the street as planned,
And sell it for a quarter of its price
To what’s-his-name, who bought books second-hand,
And have a more substantial meal than rice.

But fifty years have passed; I’m not surprised
To learn the book emporium has gone,
For now that everything's computerized,
It’s hard to steal a book from Amazon.

[Jerome Betts]

Well, it's a start while they're having tea at Chester-Le-Street.

Mourn those bookshops, second-hand,
Closing down across the land
As the pull of paper dwindles
Since the birth of things like Kindles.

Mourn each one that disappears
Fragrant with the print of years,
Wood engravings, wormage, wrappers,
Milnes and Mortons, Sakis, Sappers.

Mourn, too, works the world ignores,
Creaking yarns by crashing bores,
Sermons, studies of Siddhartha,
Cranky theories re King Arthur.

Mourn old markers found inside
Bloated volumes bound in hide,
Shelves that beg the browser ‘Try one!’ –
Some day, I must really buy one.

[Roger Slater]

Bookstore Poem

I walked into a bookstore
and I found a big, thick book,
and after I had given it
a thorough, thoughtful look

I told the clerk, "I'll take it,"
but I heard the poor man groan
when I told him, "I won't need a bag,
just put it in my phone."

[Brian Allgar]

Nice ones, Jerome & Roger.

Jerome, in line 9 you need "Authors' names".

[Jerome Betts]

Thanks, Brian.

Re yours, trying to remember where the shop you (or the N)
sold them was. Seem to recall a couple not there now, one speciaiising in second-hand textbooks.

[Brian Allgar]

I can't remember the name, Jerome, but it was the other side of Broad Street from Blackwells, going towards Cornmarket. Actually, for all I know, it may still be there - my saying otherwise was just a bit of poetic licence.

P.S. I've since done a bit of searching. It was Thornton's, and closed in 2002, although they continue to sell books ... on the Internet!