Who’s John Beecher? As best as I can figure, he’s an abolitionistic poet of early-to-mid 20th century working class folk. His work captures the soul and struggle of coal mines, mills, cotton fields – anywhere people happened to be working for next to nothing. He’s a member of the same family that produced Harriet Beecher Stowe, and was an activist, writer, and journalist straight up to his death in 1980.

I found an old beaten hard-bound copy of Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems in Powell’s. I’d never heard his name before, and was taken by the simple, yellowed dust jacket, the collection’s title, and the William Carlos Williams quote on the back. It was just sitting there lost in the Bs with a $5.00 tag on it and a note inside the cover from the book’s previous, and possibly first owner, which reads as follows:

“I enjoy sharing
my books as
I do my friends,
asking only that
you treat them well
and see them
safely home.”

The name on the tag is Elizabeth Sale of Stark Street in Portland. I have no idea if Elizabeth is still in Portland or still amongst the living for that matter. Nor do I know how what used to be her book wound up at Powell’s. Obviously, I’m guessing she or an heir sold it – and I can’t say why I get the feeling Elizabeth Sale has passed on, I just do.

So someone, possibly Elizabeth, possibly someone else, sold this fine collection – original copyright of 1962, the actual book is the third printing by Red Mountains Editions, 1971 – got a dollar or two for it, or else simply donated it, and now it was in my hands. It was the perfect confluence of a few events: I had a gift card, it was a beautiful day, and the first poem I read, “Report to the Stockholders”, spoke to me and seemed to be speaking to and about our times. Amazing when a piece written half a century ago does that, but I suppose all writing should have staying power and continue to resonate years and decades later, not only so it makes sense when you lay it out over the period it in which it was written, but when you stretch it out over any period of time.

And with all that, I’d like to share a poem from the collection:

ALTOGETHER SINGING

Dream of people altogether singing
each singing his way to self
to realms on realms within
all singing their way on out of self
singing through to unity
kindling into flame of common purpose from the
      altogether singing

such singing once I heard
where black children sang the chants of work in slavery
of hope for life at last and justice beyond the spaded
      unmarked grave
the platform dignitaries
of master race stooping for the occasion
were suddenly shamed and shaken
by these fierce and singing children
chanting out their stormy hunger
for freeborn rights
still wickedly denied

again once
in packed and stifling union hall
where miners gathered and their womenfolk
I heard such singing
while outside in the listening street
men stood uneasy and shivering beneath their heavy
      uniforms
more firmly gripped their guns
though unarmed were the singers
save for the weapon of song
and once again
where followers of the ripening crops
along the hot relentless valley hemmed by cool mirage
      of high Sierras
square danced with riotous feet
outstamping fiddlesqueak and banjo’s tinny jingle
there came a quiet
and from the quiet
burst altogether singing
yearning back to lands whence these were driven
the known and homely acres
then lusting forward to the richness of unending rows
      and vines and groves
the treasure tended only
but some day to be taken and be rightly used
the prophecy sang forth

There’s plenty of talk right now about eras ending, what with the presidential inauguration a day away – and there will continue to be plenty of talk about it. Eras are constantly ending while new ones start up. What we’re left with is an ongoing flux by which all life ebbs and flows. Someone’s dying right now, someone’s being born – something ends and something starts and there’s not too much of a use hanging on to what was.

Still it is our nature to hang on.

I hang on to eras. I know I do. I tuck physical and mental pictures away. Then I go back, not to see what’s changed but to remember what hasn’t. This makes everything a static moment resting on a continuum that, no matter how fluid, is actually frozen. Locked. The young man aging before you is still the boy heading off somewhere.

I’m writing from this place today because I’ve just learned that Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, a Milwaukee, Wis. landmark for 82-years, is closing its doors. All four locations (at one point there’d been five) will be gone as of March 31st.

I’m saddened by this. Troubled. Bothered. Annoyed. Pissed off. All of those things. Why? For any number of reasons. On a topical, tangible level, because they’ve always been independent, that means there will soon be one less independent out there. Also, we’re talking about books here. Call me a throwback, but even as my reading habits tend to wax and wane, I’ll take sitting in a room filled with books any day of the week over just about anything else.

Mostly I’m bothered because I’m still in that bookstore. Back in 2001, at a time when I’d gotten about as far away from writing and literature as I’ve ever been, Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops saved my life. They hired me as a bookseller not because I had any retail experience – I didn’t – but because I loved books. My interview with Amie, the manager at the time, was 45-minutes of talking about our favorite writers. Then I jumped at the chance to make minimum wage for eight-months because I got to talk books, stock books, smell books and buy books for an amazing discount. A few years earlier I’d been a janitor in the same bar where I drank – my paycheck went right back to the company store, so to say. Now I was turning a fat chunk of my thin check back to Harry W. Schwartz each month and loving every hardcover I carried home. On my last day of work, as Courtney and I prepared to move to Portland, Amie presented me with a $100 gift certificate to use at Powell’s. Why? Because we are all book people, a collection of failed or failing writers, PhD candidates in stasis, old activists, young activists, book worms and book snobs. Even when we hated our jobs – and of course we did at times – we loved talking books.

Yes, things change, eras end and new things rise from the ashes. It’s an easier proposition to accept when there’s no connection calling you back. In this case, with the news still fresh, even 1500 miles away in Portland, I’m not ready to accept that this one is over. Not yet.