Delmarva Today: 6-12-20
I’m doing double duty! In the first segment, my guest is Poet Laureate of the City of Salisbury, Nancy Mitchell. She discusses the poetry in her latest book, The Out-of-Body Shop. Nancy has published extensively and is a 2012 Pushcart Prize winner. In addition to being a professor at Salisbury University, she is Associate Editor of Special Features for Plume, an online poetry magazine.
Her poem, “The Past” I found more than relevant to our current situation.
The Past
If we have to bring it
up, we’ll need gloves—
latex pulled elbow-
high, a mask—gas—safety
glasses. We’ll take it
outside, spread the decades
in the sun, burn
off the mold, the stink.
It is clear, the past has come to us; brought forward by the senseless and brutal killing of a man in broad daylight by public servants sworn to provide him with a safe environment that enhances a quality of life consistent with the values of his community. It’s William Faulkner, in Requiem for a Nun, who said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past. In the midst of a lethal pandemic and its attendant economic depression, our endemic racism has been laid bare for us by this killing. With our demonstrations we have spread out the decades in the sun to burn off the mold, and the stink.
My second guest is Bill Peak, also known as “The Library Guy.” Bill is associated with the Talbot County Free Library in Easton, MD and writes a library column in The Star Democrat. Like the university system, the lockdown has had a significant impact on libraries and the patrons they serve. Since the shelving of the clay tablets containing The Epic of Gilgamesh in the library of Ashurbanipal in the 7th century BCE, libraries have captured and preserved the wisdom of the world. Today they have risen to the challenge of the coronavirus by using technology in very creative ways to serve the public.