Tag Archives: Library of Alexandria

Day 18 — my antilibrary + definitions

A word I’ve long liked given I live within one is antilibrary — so today’s poem explores that idea in a magic realism kinda way. The Factoid is presented for those who do not know what an antilibrary is but want to know. Lifted straight from the dictionaries it is.

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My Antilibrary has no End

wake again : from the ancient childhood dream : drifting high above the sea : toward the house on the summit : of a mountain range long gone : our eternal sanctuary : respite : from mortal mistakes : our sempiternal palace : our immutable mansion : our cosy cottage : that scales in size as required : especially for us : where we go : our safe house : between sentences

the home that has held us : healed us : for centuries : millennia : & more

all my books : that endless room beyond my library : where exists every book never written : as well as all the ones that were : including many of my own : past present yet to be : books lost forever : in the fires of Alexandria : in fear driven religious pogroms of every stripe : in rising damp : in neglect : in forgotten buildings falling down quietly return to earth slow soft embrace : lost ledgers from ancient Egypt : Greece : the Xia dynasty : companions to the Bhagavad Gita : biographies of Buddha : Incan glyphs : Mayan & Aztec hieroglyphs : tomes from Timbuktu & Tibet : archives even from Atlantis, Avalon, Tír na nÓg : scrolls from beyond the stars 

wake again : from the room : where once i wandered : nightly : seeking that volume : that would save : my life : from turning away 

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Day 18 Factoid – an actual dictionary definition

antilibrary  / ˈantiˈlʌɪb(rə)ri / 

The [rather impressive] collection of books you own but have not yet read, for whatever reason, but would still like to one day, when they’re needed, all of which keep you intellectually curious & humble. Books which reminds you that there’s still plenty you don’t know (yet). Plenty you don’t even know you don’t know. These innumerable beautiful unread books, should not be viewed as failures, but as sources of inspiration & future learning. & you should not stop buying them, simply because shelf space is getting a little tightish or your mother tells you you should.

Day 03 – libraries: Alexandria + Congress

Poem about one of my very favourite things to daydream about…

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the Great Library

there’s a meme I love
you know you’re a book geek 
when you still get upset thinking about
the Library of Alexandria
& many are the times i’ve considered 
buying a t-shirt stating similar sentiments

there was another viral trend
first flagged a year or so ago
about how often men allegedly
thought about The Roman Empire 
(several times a week apparently)
but while i definitely enjoy daydreaming 
about both Ancient Rome & Athens
Alexandria remains my go-to contemplatory place

the Great Library of Alexandria 
shrouded in mystery, from its founding 
to its destruction a thousand years later
some say the massive, ancient library was
the single greatest accumulation 
perhaps 400,000 papyrus scrolls 
of human knowledge in history
up until that point

it burnt three times rather than 
one single conflagration
i) Caesar accidentally set fire to part of it
during his tête-à-tête with Pompey 
ii) several hundred years later a Christian 
Patriarch turned the Temple of Serapis 
into a church & repeated skirmishes
destroyed parts piecemeal   iii) & finally
Caliph Omar asserted the contents 
“either contradict the Koran, so they’re heresy, 
or they agree, so are superfluous” 
& thus the scrolls were used as tinder 
in the city’s bathhouses — supposedly taking 
six months for everything to burn away

it is this religious arrogance / ignorance
which most angers my bookdragon
for we’ll never know now what wisdom
we lost … what science was undone …
what stories forgotten … simply because 
zealots were too insecure in their own words
to allow contradictory ones to exist

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Factoid 3 – biggest modern library 

juxtaposition of red & blue

the Library of Congress 
in Washington, D.C.
is the world’s largest library

there are numerous interesting 
facts one could share about
this iconic institution 

— yet the thing I’m entertained by 
is the current irony involved in 
the juxtaposition of the words 

Library — & — Congress