This week’s choice is “The Bookshop” by Amy Lowell which I have chosen to mark the opening of That Little Bookshop in Stafford.
Opium and hellebore
Amy Lowell (1874—1925)
He sold
Between the covers of books,
Poem 402. The Bookshop
Pierrot had grown old.
He wore spectacles
And kept a shop.
Opium and hellebore
He sold
Between the covers of books,
And perfumes distilled from the veins of old ivory,
And poisons drawn from lotus seeds one hundred years withered
And thinned to the translucence of alabaster.
He sang a pale song of repeated cadenzas
In a voice cold as flutes
And shrill as desiccated violins.
I stood before the shop,
Fingering the comfortable vellum of an ancient volume,
Turning over its leaves,
And the dead moon looked over my shoulder
And fell with a green smoothness on the page.
I read: “I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have none other gods but me,”
Through the door came a chuckle of laughter
Like the tapping of unstrung kettledrums,
For Pierrot has ceased singing for a moment
To watch me reading.
This poem makes me imagine a bookshop in Hay-on-Wye, stocked with old books as so many of them are and perhaps run by someone like Pierrot who looks at you over their spectacles and sings repetitive but unidentifiable tunes as you browse.
The poem is free verse, as many of Lowell’s poems are, and her similes and metaphors take centre stage: the books are described as opium and hellebore—opium has long been associated with narcotic dreams and hellebore was used in Greek mythology to cure madness—a great metaphor for the power of books to allow us an escape from the mundane world and its sundry insanities.
The books carry a scent that Lowell describes as “distilled from the veins of old ivory” which strikes me as exactly the right description for the smell of an old book, and she suggests that some contain poisons that retain their sting although derived from century-old lotus seeds—this might refer to books whose trenchant criticisms are still potent, or perhaps those that express venomous bigotry that still has the power to twist minds and incite violence.
Pierrot’s is singing but it does not seem to be a recognisable melody. That may be because his voice is less than satisfactory, being shrill and possessing no warmth like a dried-out old instrument that has lost its tuning. He makes me think of Sir Terry Pratchett’s take on books and bookshops:
Books bend space and time. One reason the owners of those aforesaid little rambling, poky second-hand bookshops always seem slightly unearthly is that many of them really are, having strayed into this world after taking a wrong turning in their own bookshops in worlds where it is considered commendable business practice to wear carpet slippers all the time and open your shop only when you feel like it.
Guards! Guards! by Sir Terry Pratchett.
The narrator is described as standing outside the shop, having picked up—perhaps desultorily—an ancient volume printed on vellum (animal skin) which generally denoted a more exclusive book. In this case the words on the page, lit by the moon, show us that it is Holy Writ—the opening words of the Ten Commandments—but perhaps Lowell is suggesting that an avid reader might consider the shop in the same light, having no other before it.
The last stanza perhaps confirms this: as the narrator reads, Pierrot stops singing and laughs, perhaps amused by the irony.
I like this poem because it conveys the image of a bookshop very clearly through the description of its owner and the books he sells. I like the metaphors: “the translucence of alabaster”, and “veins of old ivory”, while “cold as flutes” brings to mind the high-pitched sound of a flute which can often lack warmth in the upper registers.
It is a shame that this poem is not represented on YouTube—her best-known work, “Patterns” has many performances but this one has none.
I chose this poem because a new independent bookshop has opened in Stafford. That Little Bookshop had a good opening weekend and I visited it on Sunday with my friend Tim. It resembles Pierrot’s bookshop only in the presence of books and those keen on reading them. I wish Cassie every success in this venture—I remember Stafford’s Bookland very fondly—and I hope to visit That Little Bookshop often.