"I Am Refused Entry to the Harvard Poetry Library" by Frank X. Gaspar

A friend of mine handed out this poem before reading his paper at the conference and I was totally moved by it. I felt like crying, but I was in a seminar room and just couldn't.

I hope it's OK for me to include the whole poem here. Here's the link to the book by Frank X. Gaspar in which you can find it: Field Guide to the Heavens (1999). I also found the poem included in a word doc anthology that can be accessed online (so I didn't have to type it, yay!). I highlighted my favorite parts in light green.

I Am Refused Entry to the Harvard Poetry Library

Rightly so: for who am I but a tired question
squatting, in those days, somewhere up on
Beacon Hill, snow equally tired, crusted and dirty,
crouching in striated piles along the ancient curbs—
such a homely winter. And so there should
be books at my elbow! And there were rumors
of that splendid room: imagine sitting in
the warm, thick air, among the sons and daughters
of the sons and daughters, among the thin spines,
among the soft chairs. I would not eat all
day but linger there and let the gray light slant
through the gothic windows, or the square windows,
or from brass lamps, or from fluorescent lights,
the exact details so impossible to imagine
that they roll and flicker and agitate
the manic breath and heart: walk to the T and lay
my coins down, count the stops, hunch in
the chill morning to coffee and sugar at the vendor's
cart near the square, then advance, certain I can
talk my way into the sanctified places, sure
I can find in my pocket some scrap of card,
some guarantee I might pass. And if the world
has its own ideas, and if they are not in accord
with my own wishes, and if the mild young woman
shakes her head firmly and explains how I in
general never have, and never will, live a qualified
day in my life, I must not be afraid of the cold gray
sky and the sprawling yard—I must walk among
the gay colors of the coats and scarves, the backpacks
of the deserving: there are other buildings open
for roaming, and though I might be regarded
with the sideways look reserved for my kind,
someone will soon lay down a book or some other
thing that will fit a hand, and swiftly it will be mine.

~~~ ~ ~~~

We were allowed entrance to several buildings. They even gave us free wireless access (too bad I didn't take my laptop :-( ), but still, PhD or no, we were still outsiders. My friend had a pass to do research in the library, but I only talked to her before reading the poem, so I didn't ask anything about how it is inside. I've entered the library at Penn several times,* but this poem describes quite well my feelings when I walk around that place. I don't belong, I may have some credentials, but I'm not "a daughter of the sons and daughters" -- not that this would guarantee me a job there, no... but, anyway, I don't quite belong. I felt completely neutral at Harvard, but still, the poem is very meaningful. "The sons and daughters of the sons and daughters" (George W. comes to mind) and "The backpacks of the deserving." yeah...

*And their library is NOT good in my area at all! The library in my graduate institution, a state school, is WAY better for Brazilian literature and most other literatures than the Ivy league place. Blah.