You Don't Have To Be A Poet To Love Poets House

If you happen to find yourself in the Battery Park City neighborhood in New York -- especially if you're with a child (or more) -- you might want to drop in to the new Poets House* to show them something they've never seen before: typewriters. These ones in particular were once owned by the late poet laureate Stanley Kunitz.

You'll see new things, too (Philip Guston works, for one), about which more in a moment.  

The two typewriters sit in the children's room, and Lee Briccetti, the executive director, tells me that kids love them -- along with the old card catlogues they can open and shut, finding poems in the drawers.  

Those are just a few of the touches at the new Poets House, which has been around since 1985, mainly in a Soho loft. The opening of its beautiful building in Battery Park City in New York last weekend, heralded the other day in The New York Times, could well be a transforming event.

One of the things I love about the group is that, despite its flashy, elegant building, the first image on its home page is of its stacks (above) -- they're what counts. Poets House has some 50,000 volumes of poetry, counting books, chapbooks, journals, reading tapes, CDs and so on (all donated!). It's open access, to all -- you can roam. And though that picture doesn't show them, there are comfortable couches and chairs on the right where you can sit and read poetry.

Another thing that picture doesn't show is those Guston paintings and drawings.