BREATHING TOKENS
When I was in high school, me and my friend Ed would hang out in the Union County Public Library and smoke cigarettes. You could smoke in there, there were these big spittoon-looking floor ashtrays all over the place. I know, it's crazy. Imagine going to the library to escape your parents and smoke cigarettes in peace, but that's the kind of kids we were. Super boring kids.
Anyway. One time I remember having nothing to read and no idea of what to look for, and I just went browsing around the library seeing what popped out. What popped out was a copy of Carl Sandburg's posthumously published collection Breathing Tokens, and the first poem in it exploded my brain. I don't think there's a piece of writing I've thought about more in the last 20 years--I've copied it into notebook after notebook, I've shared it with people over and over again. It's like my Bible in a way. It's a poem about possibility and self-creation and the ability of each person to manufacture or deny destinies.
What's weirdest about it is how I came across it, utterly by random in the Union County Public Library, packing my Newports against my palm loudly enough so everyone could tell that I was the sort of person who really knew how to smoke. Breathing Tokens was out of print for years and years--you couldn't buy the book if you wanted it. And as it turns out, the reason the poems were never published during Sandburg's life is that he didn't particularly like them in the first place.
Is it destiny? Is it luck? Who cares? But I'm glad that dumb kid packing his Newports in the public library found the book, for whatever reason. "Your personal doorways know your shadows / and number the times you enter, exit, enter / so often having no lines to say / though you are actor and audience to yourself."
You can check ou the Amazon listing here--I couldn't find the poem somewhere else online.
:: Comment
Kye Flannery said:
Agree. I love this book. I can’t believe he was embarrassed of these poems — so silly and so wise at the same time. Thank you for the image of you cracking a pack of cigarettes in the library.