Dear Friends,
We hope that you are safe and well.
Today's Meditation presents "La Biblioteca is a Doula" by Magdalena Gomez. Her spirit asks, What "perfumes your imagination?"
We invite you to join us as we commit ourselves to working tirelessly to end systemic and structural racism in our society, in the church, in healthcare, in the workplace--wherever it shows up so that everyone may come to have more abundant life. May this meditation nourish our contemplative-active hearts and sustain all of us in action.
In the spirit of our philosophy of co-creating community and our awareness that the Spirit speaks through each of us, we invite you to share your meditations with us as well. We truly believe that it is God's economy of abundance: when we share our blessings, our thoughts, our feelings, we are all made richer.
We hope and pray that you find peace, healing, hope and the infusion of joy in your life!
With our love and care,
Ron and Jean
MEDITATION 625: Magdalena Gomez "La Biblioteca is a Doula"
La Biblioteca is a Doula
Magdalena Gómez
When my saddle shoes were too big
so they might last beyond the year
I ran away from home
where yelling to be heard by the unheard
rattled in my skull; burial ground of secrets.
One foot met the other
like long lost friends
awkwardly skipping their way
into Saturdays, towards stacked
protective fortresses from
childhood’s dark labyrinths;
where underestimated
eyes of innocence
found immortal truths
understood more deeply
than the tall ones
with sour faces
who had dropped their smiles
on brutal roads of hunger,
on endless days of
earning just enough
from tightened fists
that grabbed too much.
The library door
where I found my Narnia.
Where I fell in love with Emerson.
Where I read Chinese women poets
and wrapped myself
in the silk of words,
of punctuation strung like pearls
stitching together the stops, the starts,
the questions, the breaths,
the echoes and exclamations unleashed
from a soul so new to the world,
so old to life.
Where I stood on tippy toes
to find the vast longings
of human history;
to find myself
gathering lost smiles
into dreamscapes of resilience.
Musty books perfumed my imagination.
Crisp new books fell open
in my tiny hands
like tomorrow’s gold that promised
there would always be enough
in the temple where anything
is possible.
Where now, pressing into
Winter’s whim I am consoled
by the Velveteen Rabbit.
Copyright © 2020 by Magdalena Gomez. This poem originally appeared on LibraryLandProject.org, January 15, 2020. Used with permission of the author.
Magdalena Gómez was born and raised in the Bronx, New York. She is the author of Shameless Woman (Red Sugarcane Press, 2014) and the co-editor of Bullying: Replies, Rebuttals, Confessions and Catharsis (Skyhorse Publishing, 2012). The poet laureate of Springfield, Massachusetts from 2019 to 2022, she received an Academy of American Poets Fellowship in 2021.
Look closely at the drawing “Silence” by Mabel Dwight.
The following activities and questions are designed to help your students use their noticing skills to move through the poem and develop their thinking about its meaning with confidence, using what they’ve noticed as evidence for their interpretations. Read more about the framework upon which these activities are based.
Warm-up: Look closely at the drawing “Silence” by Mabel Dwight. What do you notice? Look again, what else do you see?
Before Reading the Poem (think, pair-share): Share with a partner or small group, what places help to inspire you?
Reading the Poem: Now, silently read the poem “La Biblioteca is a Doula” by Magdalena Gómez. What do you notice about the poem? Note any words or phrases that stand out to you or any questions you may have.
Listening to the Poem (enlist two volunteers to read the poem aloud): Listen as the poem is read aloud twice. Note any words or phrases that stand out to you, or those that you may not know the meaning of. You might opt to watch the video of the poet reading the poem.
Small-group Discussion: Share what you noticed in the poem with a small group of students. Based on the details you just shared with your small group and the resource from the beginning of class, how might this speaker feel about “la biblioteca,” and what might the library represent for the speaker? How does this compare to the image you viewed at the beginning of class? Why do you think the poet uses the word “doula?” What connections can you draw between a library and birth?
Whole-class Discussion: Is this poem a praise poem? The speaker states “musty books perfumed by imagination.” What perfumes your imagination?
Extension for Grades 7-8: Think back to what you discussed at the beginning of class. What places and people have been sources of wonder and inspiration? Create a poem, short story, song, visual art piece, etc. that celebrates this place or person.
Extension for Grades 9-12: Use this site to learn more about your local library. With a small group of classmates, and with your teacher’s support, reach out to a local librarian and research your library’s history. Present your findings to the class.
Every National Poetry Month, the Academy of American Poets presents Dear Poet, a multimedia education project that invites young people in grades five through twelve to write letters in response to poems written and read by award-winning poets, including poets who serve on the Academy of American Poets Board of Chancellors and who have received our Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowships. Find and respond to Gómez’s poem, among others, and participate in Dear Poet 2022 this April.
Dear Poet 2022 lesson plan.
Essay about Dear Poet.
This week’s poetic term is praise poem, which is a poem of tribute or gratitude. Read more.