Matapris oli. The only sentence I remember from my one-semester course of an endangered Finno-Ugric language called Mansi, as part of the Master’s program at the Kossuth Lajos University (KLTE), Debrecen, Hungary at the end of the 1970s. To fulfill the requirements in diachronic linguistics, we had to pick one language from the Finno-Ugric language … Read More
Natalie Díaz will be (virtually) coming to Rutgers for a live Zoom session on Wednesday July 14th! Díaz won an American Book Award for her first collection of poems, When My Brother Was an Aztec, in 2012, and recently won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for her second collection (Postcolonial Love Poem) released last year. She … Read More
In addition to my position at Rutgers as a part-time business librarian, I am also a food writer and historian. While the vocations might not seem connected, they really do work well in tandem. The database-searching proficiency I gleaned through my M.L.S. (Rutgers, 1997) combined with many years working in corporate libraries allows me to … Read More
In November of 2009 a boy named Brady invited me out to his farm home in Creal Springs, Illinois, which is roughly 45 mins outside of Carbondale, Illinois (SIUC) where I lived at the time, and where we met. Brady’s home was a natural paradise and plant lover’s dream as the farm had once been … Read More
This post, and this poem, is about puberty… I chose Rita Dove’s poem “Adolescence-II” for this summer program in part because (like all of our poems this session, actually) I’ve taught it before at Rutgers and students really connected with it! I’m curious to hear what Summer Tales participants will have to say about it, … Read More
Are you taking classes this summer? The Summer Tales Books Club operates as a non-credit course in Canvas. Started first in the summer of 2020 in response to the changed learning environment, this fun summer program continues to promise short mental breaks from coursework through a fool-proof method of distraction: reading short stories and poems and … Read More
If you’re already someone who reads for pleasure, you know what that pleasure is like; if you’re not, then you’ll have to trust us that it’s a lot of fun to read when you don’t have to worry about a quiz or a paper. If picking up a work of literature can feel like wandering … Read More
Celebrating Poetry Month in April 2021 inspired us at Books We Read to develop a new library guide called Books We Read: Poetry. The guide offers suggested poems as well as secondary readings to deepen enjoyment and understanding of poetry. We understand that reading poetry might look like a challenge. Many people think they don’t … Read More
I don’t usually “get” poetry. I secretly scoffed at my friends in undergrad who called themselves poets. The Poetry Club seemed like a contest to out-pretentious and out-angst one another. As a reader, I usually prefer prose. It makes sense; I don’t usually have to guess at anyone’s meaning. But poetry is a different beast … Read More
Looking to get into poetry but not sure where to start? We’ve got some ideas, cross-posted here from our upcoming LibGuide called Books We Read: Poetry. Take a look at the LibGuide for even more suggestions and resources! Poets to start with: Billy Collins is the first poet I recommend to people who think they don’t … Read More