©The Guardian
Yesterday’s Yorkshire Post carried a report about probable closures and cut backs in library services throughout the region. ‘Libraries are a soft option for local authorities needing to cut costs,’ it read.
A soft option. It’s true I suppose. Threaten to close a hospital or a school or to reduce the number of fire engines and people are up in arms. Threaten to shut a library and well… what’s a few books here and there?
It’s so short sighted. In times of hardship, people need libraries more than ever. They need somewhere to go; somewhere to spend time where they are not judged or patronised. They need access to free, up to date knowledge provided by experts. They need the sustenance and inspiration books provide. Libraries change lives.
I love this poem by Bernard Kops (Dramatist and poet b. 1926) about what visiting his local library did for him. My thanks to librarian and publisher Ross Bradshaw for introducing it to me:
Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East (…continued)
…A loner in love with words but so lost
I wandered the streets, not counting the cost.
I emerged out of childhood with nowhere to hide
when a door called my name and pulled me inside.
And being so hungry I fell on the feast.
Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East.
And my brain explodes when I suddenly find
an orchard within for the heart for the mind.
The past was a mirage I’d left behind.
And I am a locust and I’m at a feast.
Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East.
And Rosenberg also came to get out of the cold
To write poems of fire, but he never grew old.
And here I met Chekov, Tolstoy, Meyerhold.
I entered their words, their dark visions of gold.
The reference library, where my thoughts were to rage.
I ate book after book, page after page.
I scoffed poetry for breakfast, novels for tea.
And plays for my supper. No more poverty.
Welcome young poet, in here you are free
to follow your star to where you should be.
That door of the library was the door into me.
And Lorca and Shelley said: ‘Come to the feast.’
Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East.
... when a door called my name and pulled me inside.
Bernard Kops outside the Whitechapel Library