nichepoetryandprose

Hi everyone. I have been working on a new project, honouring bookmarks, such an important part of our reading life. I will be exploring the humble bookmark in poetry and drawings.

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In Oromocto in New Brunswick, we have a wonderful second-hand bookstore, Dog Eared Books. When used books are brought to the store, staff save the bookmarks they find. My project is to capture some of these in a book-length manuscript. To learn more about this project, click here.

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I am about five weeks into the project and I am having a very rewarding time. The bookmarks are diverse in character and I have had to learn a lot about subjects quite new to me. Just an idea of the variety I have encountered:

1. class notes on ways of presenting arguments in the field of logic;
2. a hockey card of one of the Soviet players in the 1970’s;
3. a chart showing the Queens and Kings of England;
4. a local teacher’s permit from 1959;
5. a bookmark from Owl’s Nest Bookstore in Fredericton (now closed);
6. a stack of small cards made for a game of charades;
7. a card with the number ‘150’ — from an Irish dance feis competition.

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These are only a few of the collection.

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Because I love bookstores, the bookmark from the Owl’s Nest Bookstore was of interest. The word ‘bibliosma’ refers to the smell or aroma of books. The books I mention in the poem were in the bookshelves of the store in the weeks before it closed, evidenced by their Facebook posts and photos.

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bibliosma

‘… went all the way to Fredericton to buy this old book’   

-saying on a bookmark

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Owl’s Nest Bookstore

grey cat purrs in the window

prowls between stacks

while I search for wildflowers

careful steps between hardwoods

lifting of leaves, counting of petals

rummage for botany among 

overflowing shelves of books

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first find, hardcover, dark green, old

1919 Botany of the Living Plant 

Frederick Orphen Bower, botanist, 

lover of ferns

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and here, The Wildflowers of Canada—1895

a reprint classic, on the cover, scant

specimen of golden chain tree ‘Laburnum,’

scentless but inside—heady smell

of mayflower, lily of the valley, lilac—

colour plates of wildflowers

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and a hardcover, The Blossom on the Bough: A Book of Trees 

Diane Ophelia Dowden, 1826

delicate apple blossom overcomes

almond and vanilla smell of books

three bees buzz, overpower

rumble of traffic on Queen Street

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copies of The Fiddlehead

 my poems in some of them

‘Old Man’s Beard’ The Fiddlehead 180, 1994‘

‘The Gazing Ball’ The Fiddlehead 196, 1998

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find the book 

you didn’t know you wanted

at the bottom of a pile

glimpse of indigo shimmer of water

No Faster Than a Walk

Gillis and Gillis

love covered bridges

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book on the top shelf

always 

a 

stretch

Gavin Maxwell

Ring of Bright Water

‘it is no will-o’-the-wisp 

that I have followed here’

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book store closed in 2018

blue and white bookmark 

left between pages

sketch of an owl

memory of a grey cat

a forest of books

bibliosma

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I hope if you are from the Fredericton area, you remember the Owl’s Nest Bookstore. And I hope you enjoy my poem.

All my best!

Jane