[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.

[Gail White]

Originally Posted by Ann Drysdale

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.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I've actually done that. It's better than nothing.

[Ann Drysdale]

Oh, so have I. There are several in circulation, signed and inscribed "see page 25" which is where the poem appears in the volume of that title. That's where John knows it from... (doubful grammar, that, but what the hey!)

Not cost-effective but good fun.

One of the most exciting instances was in Borders on Charing Cross Road. The poetry shelf was high up and I was searching for one of those rolling stepper-uppers so I could reach to do the deed. A beautiful young assistant came over and asked, not what I was up to but whether he could help. So I handed him the book and said I was trying to put it "up there, between..." and he parked it perfectly.

Borders, alas, is there no more. I am trying to write an elegy for it.

[Ann Drysdale]

You know, I could swear I've read that before somewhere...

Added in, wrongfootedly:

ZUGZWANG 2

That's the second time in this very thread that a post has disappeared - just bloody vanished - making nonsense of my subsequent post so that I am forced to take action.

How does this happen?

Not even the decency to replace it with a Nevermind or to remove mine as well so I don't look like a pr@.

Gorn, I tell you. Gorn - and never called me "mother"...

[Graham King]

I peruse pages, person frozen,
Somnol-int-ent on my feet,
Solemn also; apt to not note
Chance known faces who may greet,
In the bookshop - den of treasure!
Badger-like, I settle there,
Passing unknown time in browsing -
Mundane world? I’m unaware,
Drifting through fantastic landscapes,
In converse with types outré !
Thrilling risks and skinned-teeth escapes
So displace the everyday.
Tomes, too, factual and varied
Keep me rapt as text informs.
Here I stand, a Donnish island -
Book-thralled, beyond social norms.