Poet Rebecca Loudon steps in today to save our blog from becoming a dark and dusty corner of the internet. In our defense, it's mid-December, we're awash in many holiday deadlines, children's activities, and get-out-of-town plans. And did we mention it's almost 70 degrees today? Crazy stuff…
Book Signings by Rebecca Loudon
Do you cherish signed books? I have some books that were written and signed by friends that I will always treasure. I have other books that were written and signed by friends that I have given away after the friends take a trip to “Europe” and never call or write again. I own signed books written by friends that I don’t really like (the books, not the friends), and I usually keep them for a year out of guilt, or in case the friend comes to my house demanding to see the signed book, then I give them away. I have a book of poetry, Don Blanding’s Vagabond House, that my grandfather gave my mother on her 21st birthday. It is inscribed in my grandfather’s spidery crawl and dated 1947 and signed Love Daddy, from a hotel in New York. I love this book because it was one of my very first introductions to poetry. And also because I stole it.
When my first collection of poetry, Tarantella, was published, I was uncomfortable about signing it for people I didn’t know. A friend suggested I sign the book Nevertheless Trout for strangers, which I started doing, to kind of say hello to all those northwesty type poets who would be expecting lots of fish and totem poles and heron in the book. Two years later, a woman joined my workshop and when I met her for the first time I said You look familiar and she said Yes, I heard you read and bought your book. You signed it Something Trout.
I signed several copies of my chapbook, Navigate, Amelia Earhart’s Letters Home — "Marlin Brando, 1962, Miami." So far no one has corrected me on my spelling, nor have they realized I’ve snuck another fish into my signature. I’ve been signing my most recent collection of poetry, Radish King with my very own name, and adding a quote from Ernest Hemingway’s Moveable Feast: “Write the truest sentence you know.” This is because almost all the people who bought the book and asked me to sign it have been writers.
Almost.
One person I don’t know, found the book on my blog and asked me how to purchase a copy. I gave him my address and told him to send me a check. He then wrote back and asked me if I would please sign the book:
"To Christy with love
from Sam 2006"
... and if you would, please, sign it with your name, which will make it ultra-special...
That’s what he wrote, exactly, including the ellipses and the ultra-special. This request freaked me out. I don’t love Christy and I’m not going to write that in her book. So I told him I would sign my name on the book, period. He wrote again imploring me, Sorry to ask you to do something that feels funny. I’d write it in myself, it’s a tradition with us, but I'm here in Hollywood, and homesick, gonna miss Thanksgiving, maybe more holidays.
Jeezelouise! I ended up not giving him a book at all. I didn’t want the book to go to a bad or creepy home, especially with my name inside.
I forgot exactly where I was going with this. Except to say be kind when asking writers to sign their books, especially if they’re strangers, and also, buy all the books I mentioned above and give them to people for that big religious holiday like Beethoven’s Birthday, which was December 16th.
Rebecca Loudon is the author of three collections of poetry. She is a violinist with Philharmonia Northwest Chamber Orchestra. She teaches violin to children. She has written the libretti for two choral pieces and a five part song cycle for orchestra and soprano.
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