A Creative Journey Through 'Bibliopolis' and Beyond
Former Staffer's Library Poems and Drawings Published
By WILLIAM CRAIG
Not many of us are so inspired by our place of work that we spend years preserving our impressions of it in poetry and art.
One exception is Paul Boswell, who retired in 1984 after 46 years on the Library of Congress staff. During that time he depicted the grandeur he saw around him in detailed drawings and recorded the march of events, personal and cosmic, in poems with an often whimsical touch.
Some of Mr. Boswell's drawings can be seen at the Library, in the Serial and Government Publications Reading Room and on other walls and bulletin boards. Many have been treasured by friends who received them on his Christmas cards. Now, for the first time, they have been collected together with his poems in a handsome coffee-table volume, No Anchovies on the Moon, a quote from one of his poems. His love of words, books and ideas is evident throughout.
The subtitle says the book includes "three score and ten poems and drawings," which Mr. Boswell says was meant to impart a double meaning about his age, although there are more than 70 poems and drawings in the book and he is now past 80.
In an introduction to the work, Lirbrarian of Congress Dr. James H. Billington marvels at the special allegiance Library employees have to the institution, "a special affection that is sometimes difficult to describe, but always easy to sense in their devotion to the place and their work. ... No one displayed that affection more than Paul Boswell... and no one I know has captured those qualities any better than he in his poems and drawings."
Mr. Boswell says his high school English classes sparked his interest in literature and encouraged him to try his hand at writing poetry (although none of the poems in the book is from that time). He had a free year before starting college and spent it memorizing "miles of poetry," including one book of Paradise Lost.
"I've often said I could recite from noon to sunset," he remarks.
After graduating from the University of Iowa he joined relatives in Washington. When he first entered the Visitors Gallery at the Library he decided "This is where I want to be."
He had no formal art training but started sketching after military service in World War II because "I was looking for something cheap to do, and a bottle of ink and a pen are not expensive." He polished his skills by studying the art books he found at the Library.
Mr. Boswell made his drawings from photographs, his own when possible. "But I don't do tracings," he emphasizes, preferring to call them "pen and ink renderings." He spent anywhere from a month to a year on his renderings, spending the most time on a sketch of the Capitol.
The care with which his drawings were sketched is evident from the meticulous detail. Many are of the Library and the area immediately around it, although Mr. Boswell also chose subjects elsewhere in Washington. The Folger Library and its statue of Puck are favorites. Particularly striking is an overhead view of the Jefferson Building dome. Wintry scenes provided a special opportunity for black and white contrasts. There are some foreign scenes in the book -- the Paris Opera, Madrid's Escorial and St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
Although almost all of the renderings are of still subjects, one action scene may be familiar to Library employees. It depicts workmen hauling in a giant evergreen for the Library's Christmas tree through one of the massive doors of the Jefferson Building. "The Grate Society" shows homeless people huddled on a steam grate in front of the Jefferson Building. A dramatic aerial view shows tiny figures waiting to enter the National Gallery of Art to see the exhibition of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun's funeral treasures.
Most of the illustrations are matched with poems. Mr. Boswell says he is proudest of the poetry, which he regards as the truly creative part of his book. In an afterword to the volume, his son Thomas, who is an author and Washington Post sports writer, relates how his father rose at 3 a.m., morning after morning, to draw, compose or meditate before his regular workday at the Library. He revised poems many times before he was satisfied with them, returning for further work on some after years later. The poems range widely -- humorous observations and nature studies, and more profound ruminations on humans and their place in the universe.
Opening the work is a description of our home planet, "This Splendid Speck," which reads in part:
There are no peacocks on Venus,
No oak trees or water lilies on Jupiter,
No squirrels or whales or figs on Mercury,
No anchovies on the moon;
And inside the rings of Saturn
There is no species that makes poems and Intercontinental missiles....
This great blue pilgrim gyroscope,
Warmer than Mars, cooler than Venus,
Old turner of temperate nights and days,
This best of all reachable worlds,
This splendid speck.
An entire section of the work is devoted to "Book City" -- the Library and the Folger. The final stanza is called "Bibliopolis," which the author explains is his word for these buildings:
Four troves of books, that fill three city blocks,
All gathered in one cluster, are so rare
We feel like Ozymandias when he mocks:
"Look of these works, you mighty and despair."
We have room for no more buildings anywhere;
We only can expand by growing small.
Newspapers have been shrunk to one inch square;
Ten million cards into one breadbox crawl.
We will shrink, like Milton's angels, the Readers last of all.
(In a footnote, the author explains that the "cards" are catalog cards being entered into a "breadbox" computer terminal.)
Commenting on a grave event in history, "Cuban Crisis" reads:
With three billion passengers
In their back seats,
Mr. K and Mr. K
"Chicken" play.
On a humorous note, one poem pays tribute to Edna St. Vincent Millay:
I'd rather read Millay than read the Psalms,
Shakespeare's sonnets couldn't touch her,
She'd be tri-sexual without qualms --
Love men and women much, but versing mucher.
Mr. Boswell injected a poignant personal note in "Emphysema," a disease he says he contracted as a result of smoking cigarettes for many years. Its conclusion reads:
As I round out my decade number eight,
I doubt I'll do much breathing in my ninth.
So, pardon while I step outside for air,
I have a rendez-vous with breath.
Paying tribute to the author, Dr. Billington adds:
"Although he became an expert on government publications of Great Britain and the nations of the British Commonwealth, it is as laureate of books and ideas and artist of the Library's grand design and tiniest detail that he has made his creative work a wonderful reflection of our lives. There is whimsy in his words as well as wisdom; there is an expansive affection in the careful, controlled, and precise lines of his drawings. There is delight in this special place that inspires his work."
Describing his father's labors, Tom Boswell concludes:
"After nearly 50 years of work, he's decided that his book of poetry and drawings is finally finished. `It's as good as I can make it,' he says."
Discussing the book himself recently, Paul Boswell modestly stated:
"I don't expect to make a big splash, but perhaps a ripple."
No Anchovies on the Moon is published by Seven Locks Press. It is available for 9.95 from the Library's Sales Shop (call (202) 707-0204) in the Madison Building as well as selected retail outlets.
William Craig is a Washington freelance writer.