Since I wrote a column about rearranging books in my library so that the mystery writers and poets could hang out on the same shelf, I’ve had many inquiries about the content of those conversations.
The truth is, what is said on the shelves stays on the shelves.
That means the tomes can intone anything they want to each other, knowing it will remain safely in the place where they conversed. In a moment of over-enthusiasm, I teased that I would try to listen in on the exchange between mystery writer Dashiell Hammett and poet Langston Hughes.
Of course, I was joking. I wasn’t about to breach my own policy. That might launch an exodus of books that had believed, some for many decades, that they were under my privacy protection. I could picture them straitening their dust jackets and hoisting little picket signs as they filed neatly to the end of their row before stepping down to the one beneath.
There might be a few radicals like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg who would leap into the middle of the next row, potentially wreaking chaos on neighboring books.
No, the books, as they knew it shoudl be, had their private conversations protected.
However, I can tell you what I imagined the poet and the mystery writer might have said:
LH: “Hey Dashie, what are you doing up here?”
DH: “The boss suggested maybe we should get to know each other. Besides, the air gets a bit stale on the bottom shelf.”
LH: “Not that everything has to be about me, but I was wondering if you had a favorite poem of mine?”
DH: “So you’re assuming I read your poetry?”
LH: “You could do worse.”
DH: “While I’m thinking, maybe we could listen to a little of that jazz you love so much?”
LH: “There’s no such thing as a little jazz. It’s either jazz or no jazz. Let’s get back to my poems. Before we continue, I guess I should ask if you even read poetry.
DH: “Do you read mystery stories?”
Two writers traded barbs in the theater of my imagination. Best bedtime story I’ve had in a long time.
Email patriciabunin@sbcglobal.net. Follow her on Patriciabunin.com