Saturday, January 20


From The Nova Scotia P.S. Speller, 1917:


The festivities of the capital were noteworthy. The principal buildings were gorgeous with banners. At night superb fireworks made the scene brilliant. Sparkling fountains of light formed brilliant cascades. A feathery fire of crimson and yellow shook out millions of watery rubies and emeralds.




Lost boys and found boys, lost and found children, the hidden amid the public -- all of these haunt my mind these days.



2 comments:

Bri Johnson said...

I love the photograph, and I love how you're sharing things from the speller. You're inspiring me to do the same with my World's Great Letters book. I always smile when I arrive at your blog and see an excerpt from the speller.

The rest is haunt-worthy, QED.

JLH said...

Yeah, I love the photo, too. Did you see how it's a metaphoto? It's a photo of a photo (well, the magnet gives it away). I don't like to publish anything other than my own photos, though if I want to show you something published elsewhere I just take my own picture of it. Sneaky, huh, or risky, for a librarian?

I think Annie Dillard gets a lot more credit for her use of found poetry. But I can't help but use this one wonderful book, which many people would treasure if they had a copy. I expect it's out of print. Go for it with your letters. There's so much great stuff out there to enjoy in the long tail, the really long tail, of English prose. Long not in age but in relative obscurity. Found stuff. I'm really into words and sentences. More of this anon.
By the way, I heard a rumor from the northwest that it's almost someone in the northeast's birthday. I wish someone a fine one.