Andrea Nicolay's blog

The Summer Reading theme for 2009, Be Creative, isn't just kids' stuff. Adults need craft time too, so check out our Summer D.I.Y. Series at the Mulberry Street Branch. In the true spirit of D.I.Y., three of our staff members volunteered to learn and teach some crafts. In June we held a Book Art crafting session--participants brought in cardboard cereal boxes and 45 minutes later they held a handmade notebook. The July program saw old t-shirts transformed into useful tote bags, thanks to a simple craft recipe by Amy Sperber from the book Tease (Sarah Sockit, ed.).

Tempted to get your craft on? Please join us for craft number three on August 19 at 6:30, when the most talented crafter on the Mulberry Street staff will show you how to make wearable art from buttons. Gather up all those strays and create a holiday gift for your Aunt Josephine or sister Claire.

Also mark your calendar for the first ever Mulberry Street Book & Cookie Swap Social on Wednesday, September 2 at 6:30. You bring some books and a dozen of your favorite cookies (homemade or store-bought) for trading, and we'll provide the trading floor, the coffee, and raffle prizes! Not a bad way to bookend your summer.

Final Week of National Poetry Month

Reader’s Den friends, we’ve come to the fourth and final installment of our month-long celebration of verse. I give you a poem from fellow New Yorker Don Marquis, originally published in 1915. Check out discussion questions after the break, and post comments!

SO LET THEM PASS, THESE SONGS OF MINE
by Don Marquis

So let them pass, these songs of mine,
Into oblivion, nor repine;
Abandoned ruins of large schemes,
Dimmed lights adrift from nobler dreams,

Still shall I struggle, fail, aspire,
Lose God, and find Gods in the mire,
And drink dream-deep life's heady wine--
So let them pass, these songs of mine.

Questions to Inspire Discussion:  read more »

Week 3 of National Poetry Month

To a “Friend”? Are you sure he/she is just a friend, Ms. Lowell?

This week The Reader’s Den offers up an Amy Lowell sonnet, originally published in the year 1912. Check out discussion questions after the break, and post a comment if the spirit moves you!

TO A FRIEND by Amy Lowell

I ask but one thing of you, only one,
That always you will be my dream of you;
That never shall I wake to find untrue
All this I have believed and rested on,
Forever vanished, like a vision gone
Out into the night. Alas, how few
There are who strike in us a chord we knew
Existed, but so seldom heard its tone
We tremble at the half-forgotten sound.
The world is full of rude awakenings
And heaven-born castles shattered to the ground,
Yet still our human longing vainly clings
To a belief in beauty through all wrongs.
O stay your hand, and leave my heart its songs!

Click on for questions, and to learn about Amy Lowell: Rock Star. All posts will be read and responded to.  read more »

Week 2 of National Poetry Month: Seeing Things

The Reader’s Den is the NYPL’s online book discussion forum, but during the month of April we’re all about poetry. This week’s poem, City Visions, was chosen with a view to celebrating Immigrant Heritage Week, which starts April 17. It was written by the same poet whose words grace the Statue of Liberty (“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses…”).

CITY VISIONS by Emma Lazarus

I.

As the blind Milton's memory of light,
The deaf Beethoven's phantasy of tone,
Wrought joys for them surpassing all things known
In our restricted sphere of sound and sight,—
So while the glaring streets of brick and stone
Vex with heat, noise, and dust from morn till night,
I will give rein to Fancy, taking flight
From dismal now and here, and dwell alone
With new-enfranchised senses. All day long,
Think ye 't is I, who sit 'twixt darkened walls,
While ye chase beauty over land and sea?
Uplift on wings of some rare poet's song,
Where the wide billow laughs and leaps and falls,
I soar cloud-high, free as the the winds are free.  read more »

Week 1: Isn’t it Romantic?

Welcome to Poetry Month with the Reader’s Den! Instead of the normal online book discussion this month, each Wednesday we'll post a poem for consideration and discussion. Feel free to use the questions below the poem as a springboard. Post your insights and impressions in the comments, and be sure to check back later in the week to see what others thought.

We begin with a poem by John Keats, composed in the year 1818.

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

Discussion Questions:

1. What are the narrator’s strongest fears?

2. Grain, stars, clouds, shadows, shore…why all the nature imagery?

3. How would you interpret the concluding lines?

Continue exploring this poem with a glossary and more:  read more »

Helene Berson's work is on display in the main reading room on Level 2 from July to August. Since we opened last May, six local artists have shown their work here.

Describe the kind of art you create.
My artwork is best described as collage and mixed media. The materials I rely on are myriad types of papers, photos and acrylic paint. Some of these come from quite ordinary contemporary sources, some are vintage, some are found objects, and some are specialty art papers. The works come together with the use of a variety of glues and gels. Frequently I incorporate details that have great personal meaning to me in addition to adding visual interest or suggesting the themes or subject of the work.

Talk about the scope of your show at the Mulberry Street Branch.The show consists of about 25 pieces of artwork. They range in size from 4 x 4" to 16 x 20. Most of these pieces were inspired by family photographs; many are of my parents. I found making these works of art gave me an opportunity to explore my feelings about family; family history and my roots. For this reason I coined the term “biollage” to suggest the connection between collage, biography, personal biology and history. Although much of the work contains very personal and mundane references I believe it evokes universal common human themes and experiences.

Where do you find inspiration?I have been deeply inspired by the good fortune of having many vintage family photos in my possession. For many years, decades actually, I treasured these photographs but was not actively relating to them. They were stored in boxes and bags and tucked away in a cupboard. Over the past several years they have revealed both a treasure trove of memories real and imagined and at the same time a Pandora’s Box of the mixed bag of my family history. This show at the library consists of one collection of my work. Other work reflects the inspiration of the sea; shapes--especially triangles; travel, and architecture.

How do you think the library setting affects the people who are experiencing your art?I believe that the Mulberry Street library is a particularly fitting setting for my show because it is a historic building that matches the vintage photographs and settings of my collages. I would like to think that when readers and researchers look up from their books or laptops my work provides a thoughtful resting place for the mind and eye.

Let's judge books by their covers. Describe the kinds of book jackets that have stuck in your artist's memory. I have certainly been drawn to look at a book because of its cover. I like bright, simple, dynamic and stylized designs and typefaces. One example is The Postman Always Rings Twice by James Cain. Generally speaking pulp fiction, Art Deco and styles popularized in the 1930s and 40s will almost always get a second glance from me.

Visit the Mulberry Street Branch to sign Ms. Berson's guest book and see the installation in person.