Amongst the constant rustle of scattered leaves, the boisterous colors of Fall foliage, and fears of Winter's impending arrival, sometimes it's difficult to hear yourself think. Three out of four librarians agree that reading poetry may help reduce Autumn-related stress.*
The Literature Department of Cleveland Public Library houses an impressive, growing collection of poetry books. From turn-of-the-twentieth-century Cleveland nature poet Leonard Gurley Foster's Blossoms of Nature to former Poet Laureate Billy Collins' recently released Ballistics, there are thousands of diverse works from American and world poets in the Literature Department. Stop by and peruse our New Poetry Books display, browse our shelves, and pick up a copy of the monthly list of featured new poetry. You're sure to find something that tickles your fancy and/or tickles you pink.
If life is a slice of pumpkin pie, add a dollop of cream by indulging in some of these new additions to the poetry collection in the Literature Department:
Running May through August 2008, Cleveland Public Library will present an exhibit entitled "Esperanto, Elvish, and Beyond: The World of Constructed Languages" on the second floor of the Main Library.
What are "constructed languages?" Quite simply, they are languages that have been intentionally constructed. Languages like English, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Swahili, and Guguyimidjir (a nearly-extinct native language of Australia) all evolved naturally, arising organically within a group of people through various natural forces. No single person defined their vocabularies, designed their syntaxes, or deliberately decided to create them.
In 1926, Cleveland Public Library, in cooperation with local theaters, began to produce bookmarks. The bookmarks were designed to promote Hollywood feature films of the day as well as the Library's vast collection of print materials, which many of those films were based on. This collection represents Cleveland Public Library’s ongoing commitment to the arts. The CPL Literature Department continues to collect a wide-ranging array of books on films and filmmaking along with its many volumes of classic literature.
An article in the Christian Science Monitor from 1927 praised CPL's bookmark initiative:
Perhaps this Library’s most successful experiment in co-operative book advertising is the bookmark....Three things have been fundamental in this co-operation: The library has reserved the right to decide what productions are worthy of this publicity, the producer or the exhibitor pays for the printing, and the bookmarks are distributed not only throughout the library system but in the movie theater...thus introducing the library to a public which may not have even a bowing, let alone even a borrowing acquaintance with it, and gaining hundreds of readers not only for the book or play on which the movie was based but for those on the biography, history and social setting of the period.