{"id":337,"date":"2021-08-17T13:05:13","date_gmt":"2021-08-17T17:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/?p=337"},"modified":"2021-08-17T13:21:30","modified_gmt":"2021-08-17T17:21:30","slug":"poem-3-ashburnham-by-melissa-range","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/archives\/337","title":{"rendered":"Poem 3 – Ashburnham by Melissa Range"},"content":{"rendered":"

(For your annotations of this poem, we’re doing a bit of background historical research–choose a line or word or image and try to discover what specific historical reference the poet is making)<\/em><\/p>\n

Ashburnham
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Melissa Range, from\u00a0Scriptorium<\/em>, 2016.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With a name like that,
\nthe librarian shouldn’t have been surprised<\/p>\n

when late night hearth-spearks
\nkindled mantel-tree and wainscot,<\/p>\n

turned the hallways to tinder,
\ncindered the vellum<\/p>\n

already almost too fragile to touch–
\nan antiquarian’s collection<\/p>\n

amassed when the monasteries
\nwere dissolved, when books<\/p>\n

were flung from scriptoria, torn
\nparchment used for bootblacks’ rags.<\/p>\n

A gospel, an epic, a charter aflame,
\nthe only copies thrown from a window<\/p>\n

when the librarian could no longer wait
\nfor the bucket brigade;<\/p>\n

the next morning, schoolboys
\npocketed the black and buckled scraps.<\/p>\n

The poem about the seafaring hero,
\nbound into a larger volume<\/p>\n

of monster-tales and marvels,
\nsmoked as if from dragon-fire,<\/p>\n

parts of the tale already worm-eaten,
\nand though the restorationists<\/p>\n

cleaned and pinned the leaves–
\nfire-brittle, water-warped–<\/p>\n

to a line to dry, the story kept
\ndisintegrating, its margins<\/p>\n

crumbling further at each touch,
\nleaving scholars less to copy<\/p>\n

of what was already less a copy
\nthan a shadow–the original<\/p>\n

unpreserved, irretrievable
\nthe instant the pen quenched<\/p>\n

the harp: a smoldering
\nsmothered, a ruin of the tongue.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Note<\/strong><\/p>\n

On October 23, 1731, many singular volumes and manuscripts in the Cotton Library, including the only extant copy of\u00a0Beowulf<\/em>, were irreparably damaged or destroyed in the Ashburnham House Fire. Some of this poem’s details are from\u00a0A Report from the Comittee Appointed to View the Cottonian Library . . . [signed by] W. Whiston<\/em>. Printed for R. Williamson and W. Bowyer, London, 1732. This poem is in memory of John Miles Foley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(For your annotations of this poem, we’re doing a bit of background historical research–choose a line or word or image and try to discover what specific historical reference the poet is making) Ashburnham By Melissa Range, from\u00a0Scriptorium, 2016.   With a name like that, the librarian shouldn’t have been surprised when late night hearth-spearks kindled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":339,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions\/339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}