Hailley's Six Word Memoir: Aspiring Librarian Discovers Poetry Is Cool

I already knew poets were cool but I had an amazing opportunity on Friday to rediscover that fact.

About a month ago, Susan had sent me an email about an upcoming workshop at Poets House, a poetry library located near Battery Park. The workshop was for librarians about how to integrate and grow a poetry collection at your library. She knew how much I love libraries and thought it would be a good fit. I talked to Nick and he also thought it would be a good workshop. Nick contacted Poets House and signed me up.

Side note: Poets House was the group that sponsored the Joy Harjo reading Whitney and I attended at the National Museum of the American Indian a few weeks ago.

I left the hotel bright and early for a downtown train. I haven't really spent much time in the Battery Park area. It was a beautiful day outside, which further enhanced the area!

The space the Poets House is in is BEAUTIFUL. Lots of large windows to let in sunlight and large spaces to hold more poetry than I thought possible. There is even a separate children's room, complete with functioning typewriters to jot down some poems. The second floor of the building is the library itself, along with tables and couches for writing and relaxing. I sort of wish I had discovered this place earlier because it would have been a good place to write my responses.

Anyways, a bunch of librarians were in one of their meeting spaces and we spent the day talking poetry. Two poets, Nancy Willard and Dave Johnson were our leaders of sorts, guiding us through the ins and outs of poetry. We even got to write our own poems! We also created our six word memoirs (hence the title of this post). It was the perfect atmosphere to share ideas and past events and brainstorm new ways to get poetry out to library users.

Overall, it was a fantastic workshop. While I don't have a poetry collection I can go back to and improve and sponsor a bunch of events, it did get my gears turning about when I finally have my own collection when I become a librarian. Poetry is important and quite beautiful. Personally, I didn't get into poetry until I was in college. I do wish I had learned to appreciate it earlier and so I think part of my mission as a librarian will be to expose the people I work with to excellent poetry. Just like I believe every person has a book/genre/author that is the best fit for them, I think every person has a poem/genre/poet that is the best for them; it will be my job to figure out what that might be.

As I left the workshop with a folder full of information and a source book with even more useful tips and tricks, I was reminded once again how lucky I am to be on this term. I had just participated in a workshop in a beautiful space in the city. Not only was this workshop interesting, it is helping to build my library science foundation and this information will be invaluable as I continue on to graduate school. I am so thankful and happy with my internship at the New York Public Library and everything it has given me the past three months. I am also so lucky to have Susan as a professor because she looks out for her students; she learns what we are passionate about and does her best to steer us to things that will interest us. Just more reasons why New York Term ROCKS.