I cannot live without books… Thomas Jefferson

space

Welcome to Our Town Books!

At Our Town Books you will find a variety of new and good-quality used books including contemporary fiction, children’s books, civil war history, and books with a local flavor.

Upcoming Events News and Reviews
Link to Our Books Poets' Corner

Recent Posts

space

High Doodle

GongoraWhen I first encountered The Death of Chatterton, a nineteenth century painting by Henry Wallis, in the National Gallery in London, I was entranced. A few Tube stops later (having dutifully minded the gap) I was holed up in a dingy hotel room “painting” my own monochromatic version of Chatterton in lines of ink.

Little did I know I was committing ekphrasis. (Not to worry. It’s perfectly legal in England.) And it seems that poets have been getting away with it for years. As a matter of fact, W.H. Auden and Wallace Stevens famously performed this act on the very same painting, Brueghel’s Fall of Icarus.