‘My books have unlimited patience.’ Alberto Manguel
‘Every book I own, I need. My library is my manual for life.’ Mendel Uminer
Bound papers are a compact, some might turn away,
some belong in an encyclopedia, some in a poem,
a few are misplaced, an almost irreversible loss.
The books pile up beneath the picture windows,
the monthly accumulation eventually slowed.
An occasional avalanche thunders to the floor.
Some contain illustrations for winter afternoons
like this one, half light, spitting on the glass.
Poetential waits coiled in the art books.
Notes:
The term itself is Japanese dating to the Meiji era, a blend of tsun (to pile things up) and doku (to read).
Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night, Knopf Canada, 2006
Mendel Uminer: ‘Towering stacks of Judaica lined the walls, heaps of film criticism and opera history filled the prewar bathroom, piles of plays and poems blocked a window, and Uminer slept on a floor mattress engulfed in dog-eared novels.’ Alex Vadukul, ‘Too Many Books?’, NY Times, July 9, 2026. Uminer was evicted from his studio apartment a block from Central Park for possessing too many books – a fire hazard.
