We’re organizing the bookshelves in our house today. After waiting three months for a very special bookshelf to be built, and buying two others second hand, when they all suddenly arrived at the same time this morning, we had work to do! So we are. Working. Arranging bookshelves, making choices, organizing according to the way we think, as well as for aesthetic pleasure, and to tell you the truth, it’s rather intimidating. But books! We love books and it will all be worth it in the end.
So, in honor of books, here’s today’s poem. (It’s also been posted on my website, so some of you might have seen it before.)
MY FAVORITE BOOK
Come along, old friend.
Let’s walk your road again.
I know each bend,
each rise
and fall.
I know it all, yet
every time you show me more
a twisted root
a hidden door
a sheltered nook
I’ve passed but never seen before.
Let’s run your road, this well-worn path.
We’ll kick up dust and later,
when I stop to rest,
I’ll feel your breath upon my back
press me toward
The End.
—Kristy Dempsey (all rights reserved)
Kristy Dempsey 
Have you ever done a poetry collection? These are all really, really good!
I have a couple done and a couple in the works but I think of them as being so hard to sell. For one thing, poetry is a hard sell anyway, and for another, some of my stuff is funny but I write a lot of quiet too. Publishing poetry collections is one of my one-day dreams.
Oh, and thank you. I love poetry so much and it always makes me get teary-eyed when someone likes something I’ve written.
You could tell Olmue about being included in an anthology by Lee Bennett Hopkins, couldn’t you? Huh HUH?
Oh, yeah… I forgot, really, I did. Lee accepted two of my poems for an I Can Read anthology called Dizzy Dinosaurs. I was thrilled and he is such a sweet, encouraging, motivating person. It helps me to know he believes in me.
You haven’t met him yet, right? It’s just other people meeting me and saying “I know Kristy”? Like I did?
I haven’t met him yet. What do you mean? Did you meet him and tell him you know me? Have I lost my brain?
At ALA last summer. I have to have told you. Could I really not have told you? I definitely told you.
Ah, yes. You told me. I remember now. My brain is on diet coke deficit.
I’ve got some book poems, too. For the same reason, I suspect, although none of mine made the final cut. *sigh*
This one is lovely.
None of my book poems made the final cut either. I have no doubt your poems will be gracing anthologies to come though.