L. Z. Smash, Esq.

poet-about-town

[peabodyinstitutearchives]

Mostly gone, but not forgotten is the card catalogue. Although the Peabody Institute uses an online database for library materials the card catalogue in the research room next to the archives still serves a purpose. For many years the librarians would look through the local papers and type out on index cards the names, places and events that took place in Peabody. There is a wealth of genealogy information in these drawers along with forgotten history about Peabody.

[bostonpoetryslam]

Do you identify more with the witch or with melting? The puddle or the screaming?

Claire Alexandria, “Application of Oz,” published in Alien Mouth (via bostonpoetryslam)

[explodingdog]

[iowawomensarchives]

For more than 20 years, Gwendolyn Fowler (whose story we shared last week) collected the obituaries and funeral programs of members of the African American community in Des Moines. Fowler’s collection documents the lives of more than 100 people–some were teachers, some doctors, many raised families, and many were active in their local congregations.

In reading these materials, connections among friends and families emerge, providing context for the larger community in a way that might not be possible if the obituaries were considered individually. 

–Laurel

Gwendolyn Fowler papers, Iowa Women’s Archives, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City.

[bostonpoetryslam]

We don’t, especially in the US, want to look at poetry as something every student is capable of, because that would be dangerous to those who control the school systems. All students, regardless of their backgrounds, would realise that they are capable of speaking very well; that there are not certain individuals who control what constitutes good language. They would realise that language is not just this agreed upon set of constructed ideas, that it’s not an MLA citation or a five-paragraph essay, that everyone can create new and beautiful language. So it is very frustrating to me when people say, ‘I don’t like poetry,’ or, ‘I don’t understand it,’ because all of that seems the fault of a system that doesn’t want to give poetry its power, and that doesn’t want to give people their power either.

Dorothea Lasky, interviewed by Rebecca Tamás for Prac Crit (via bostonpoetryslam)

[cityofbostonarchives]

Handbill submitted to City Council as part of permit application for Flea Circus Exhibit on Washington St. in Boston, 1835.

Docket 1835-0039-C2. City Council Proceedings, (Collection # 0100.001) Boston City Archives.

This work is in the public domain. Please credit Boston City Archives.

[othmeralia]

Following up on her lion, CHF Museum’s Visitor Services Assistant provides yet another gorgeous submission for #ColorOurCollections.

[libraryjournal]

Another fantastic way to promote your special collectons.

[iworkatapubliclibrary]

Chocolate, Love in the Time of

Patron: “Do you have a book by someone named Márquez? I think it’s pretty famous and had a movie made about it: Love in the Time of Chocolate?

Me: “I think you’re looking for Love in the Time of Cholera.”

Patron: “Are you sure? That sounds really depressing.”

[bostonpoetryslam]

The longer I write beside large windows the larger my understanding becomes I am allowed to lease the space between the bang and the flash I could sleep on the couch for years

Anis Mojgani, “UNDER MS FREY’S ARROWS I RETURN TO THE POETIC STACKING OF PICTURES I FELL IN LOVE WITH INSIDE OF MR McDANIEL’S HANDS,” published in Nailed Magazine (via bostonpoetryslam)

[bostonpoetryslam]

And now, when art is practiced with no other intention than to create commodities for the profit economy, that’s a problem, because the profit economy is founded on a paradigm of scarcity and violence. Isn’t poetry a mode of valuation that is other than that? Isn’t there a paradigm of abundance and love that undergirds poetry?

Li-Young Lee, interviewed by Paul T. Corrigan for Image Journal (via bostonpoetryslam)

[upennmanuscripts]

Our first entry for #ColorOurCollections : #RocketCat! You can find Rocket Cat on folio 137r of Ms. Codex 109, a 16th c. illustrated German treatise on munitions and explosive devices.

This week, libraries and museums around the world are sharing color-able pages with images from their collections. Every day, we’ll be posting one or two of the most striking images from our collections. These are reasonable-sized PDFs, stored on a public Google Drive (click the image above to go to the PDF file), and they will stay up for the foreseeable future. 

We’d love to see what you do with our coloring pages! Tag us in replies, and we’ll reblog your artwork.

Have a great week and GET OUT THERE AND COLOR!

[bostonpoetryslam]

Q how do you know you’re a ghost A it’s the sliding Q is it like sleep A like scything

Anne Carson, “Ghost Q & A,” published in A Public Space (via bostonpoetryslam)

[libraryjournal]

German Kindergarten Designed as a Giant Cat

Kindergarten Die Katze is a children's school in Wolfartsweier near Karlsruhe, Germany built in the adorable likeness of a giant, white cat. Designed by artist Tomi Ungerer and architect Ayla-Suzan Yöndel, the educational venue adds a dose of whimsy for children to take delight in going to school. Each day, students are given the opportunity to playfully enter through the mouth of the cat into the spirited belly of the cuddly feline where the space is built to house 100 children. The architectural design choice has a level of quirkiness that befits a child's sense of humor and breadth of knowledge. The building is shaped to mimic a crouching kitty with its ears upright, looking as though it is ready to pounce at any moment. The circular windows at the front of the imaginative architecture serve as the enormous cat's eyes whereas the tail in the back is actually a slide. Inside the kitty kindergarten, all of the usual amenities are present—classrooms, coatrooms, a kitchen, dining room,…

Meow like very much!

[explodingdog]

[cityofbostonarchives]

In 1853, Harriet Hunt, a female Boston physician, wrote this letter to Boston and its citizens protesting the taxation without representation of Boston women.

Her letter reads:

To the authorities of the City of Boston and the citizens generally:

Harriet K Hunt. Physician. A native and permanent resident of the City of Boston and for many years a tax-payer therein in making payments of her taxes for the coming year, protests again, against the injustice of levying taxes without a right of representation. If women have interests and rights and are subjects of taxation, they have also a right of representation. The present system of taxation is a serious wrong, a violation of justice, as well as a violation of republicanism. If of all the women in Massachusetts, who are citizens, only ten felt this wrong, those ten should be redressed, but when nearly 2000 petitioners presented themselves through their signatures to your Constitutional Convention on this vital question, it was “inexpedient” for the Convention to take any action in relation thereto. What woman of thought can “consent” to be governed (for that is the argument) under the present subversive party elements that brings into office those who are to represent her.  No reasonable or satisfactory answer has ever been given to women on this subject, only that Man represented her through Fathers, Husbands, Brothers, and Sons. Your remonstrant has no such representation and there are many in like situation. “State, County, and City Tax.”  The former the expense of the Constitutional Convention in which she had no voice (but petition) and how farcical is that power of petition, when she can neither express assent nor dissent to its doings, but be unjustly taxed and, like an idiot, lunatic, or infant, be compelled to meet it. Of the “City Tax,” the ward, the inequality and injustice of our Public School System, in having no High School for Girls, while our boys have both a Latin and High School was spoken of in her last Protest and our privileged right of Petition tested by the voice of at least 2700 for such High School. This petition was duly presented last Spring and whatever action may have taken place on the School Committee, the public are ignorant. No High School for Girls has as yet been organized. With these views which might be more fully carried out, with the increase of her tax bill, in consequence of your Constitutional Convention, which can result in no permanent good, since the great central element of Justice, was by the committee on our petition, winked into “inexpediency,” and no minority report, nor any act of the Convention indicated or even recognized the right of Women on the real basis of representation. Humanity.

Thus dissatisfied with City expenditures, the inequality of public school education, refusing education, you remonstrant pays her taxes compulsorily instead of cheerfully, feeling within her that element of patriotism which inspired her as well as your Forefathers in the utterance of that deep, full, and clear sentiment,”Taxation without representation is tyranny.”

This is respectfully submitted.

Harriet K. Hunt.

Letter from female physician protesting against female taxation without representation,  1853 March 5, Docket 1853-0133-G, City Council proceedings, (Collection #0100.001), City of Boston Archives.

This record is in the public domain.  Please attribute to City of Boston Archives.

[nemfrog]

[uispeccoll]

I found another library with artists’ books on Vine.  Nicely done, Robert E. Kennedy Library from California Polytechnic State University.  Even though you haven’t posted recently, you’ve won a fan.