poetry is
a quiet gasp
alone late at night
because you just read
the words your heart
wanted
               needed
                             was trying to say
and both hadn't found
and didn't know
until that moment

 

Note: I think the reason this poem keeps coming up in Google searches is because it is heavily based on a poem I read ages ago and forgot until some of its phrases floated up to the top of my mind and I wrote them down, thinking I'd come up with them. It is very easy for the human mind to commit plagiarism unintentionally.

TIFITLWIW: Title pages

A Book of Golden Deeds of All Times and All Lands, Gathered & Narrated by Charlotte M. Yonge (Dutton & Co., ~1908).
This book, which I think is about good deeds done by good people, sounds kinda didactic and boring. Aren't the title pages gorgeous though? I love the quote by Shakespeare. This is actually my current cellphone wallpaper.

Modern Essays Selected by Norman E. Brett-James (Dutton & Co., ~1924)
By the same publishing house. I didn't notice that until now. Gorgeous early twentieth-century books.

 Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, translated by Lawrence Grant White with illustrations by Gustave Doré (Pantheon Books, 1948)
Totally nerded out when I found this. This gif is what my face was doing as I flipped through the book. Also, note Dante's uncanny resemblance to Grumpy Cat.

Paganism, Popery, & Christianity... by Vincent W. Milner (Bradley, 1860)
This one's not as pretty but I'm showing it as an example of the crazy-long titles books used to be given. They didn't mess around in those days; they wanted you to know exactly what was going to be in their book. Click and read this one; it's great. I am also amused by how RAGE OF THE PROTESTANT VARIETY the author is about Catholicism. It's easy to forget about that being A Thing in the 1800s. Let There Be Light is also the motto of UCLA; not sure why the circle/seal thing is a belt. Also, this book is older than the American Civil War.