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Prudence Huntleigh, Head Librarian
theme of “the proverbial uptight librarian” suggested by Brian Yapko
She mans the front desk and she oversees
All borrowings, returns, and two-cent fines.
A tailored tweed suit (hems just at the knees)
Is proper for her trim and shapely lines.
Her horn-rimmed glasses sit upon her nose
As daintily as heather on a hill.
She’s straightforward, concise as simple prose,
Not cold, but reminiscent of a chill.
Her hair is firmly torqued into a bun
In which her sharpened pencil’s at the ready—
She rarely smiles, and so it seems that fun
Is not within the purview of this steady
Demure prim mistress of the numbered stacks.
Her female nature’s wound tight and constrained.
You can’t imagine her in shorts or slacks.
Impulse in her is curbed and closely reined.
And yet she is erotic in a way
That draws one to her powder and cologne—
Her derrière, just curved in its display,
Her modest breasts, as firm as chiseled stone,
The intonation of her measured speech,
Arch but reassuring and subdued—
The way she governs all within her reach:
The index cards, the thumbtacks… just how lewd
Could such a dame as this be, you might wonder.
You fantasize scenarios in bed
Where she explodes with hot orgasmic thunder
While you’re drained drier than a shrunken head.
Alas, it cannot be. She is too bookish.
Sweet talk and foreplay would not make a scratch.
Although she’s tempting, and a bit good-lookish,
You can’t ignite asbestos with a match.
Confine yourself to bold imagination:
Of how one night, at closing time, you’ll meet
Her all alone behind the checkout station
And in one moment sweep her off her feet.
And she’ll surrender to your sudden spurt
Of masculine adventure and ambition.
She’ll gasp in lust, hike up her tight tweed skirt,
And let you have a special first edition.
.
.
Joseph S. Salemi has published five books of poetry, and his poems, translations and scholarly articles have appeared in over one hundred publications world-wide. He is the editor of the literary magazine TRINACRIA and writes for Expansive Poetry On-line. He teaches in the Department of Humanities at New York University and in the Department of Classical Languages at Hunter College.
Love it! I am sure others will, too.
Joseph, I am thoroughly tickled that an off-hand comment I made on Susan’s “Bibliophile’s Betrothal” poem has actually found life as a full-flowered (full-figured?) poem. And not just any poem – this is one of the funniest laugh-out-loud poems I’ve read in a long time. Your sense of comedy is flawless as you contrast the uptight librarian’s personality with the speaker’s lewd fantasies.
The fun starts with the title – “Prudence” is a perfect conservatively prudent librarian name. Is her last name an inversion of Leigh Hunt, the poet who introduced Keats and Shelley? Surely her personality is the opposite of “romantic” – which makes the inverted name a fun “Easter egg.” And “hunt” is a somewhat loaded rhyme word in the context of this poem.
As for the content of the poem, the double-entendres, the unapologetically ribald words and imagery are sublime. I will long remember “mistress of the numbered stacks” and the way you turn “prim” on its head with frankly-stated “hot orgasmic thunder” and that unblushing “sudden spurt” and then concede – memorably – that you “can’t ignite asbestos with a match” but that you can still fantasize about that “special first edition.” Whew. For sheer, unadulterated entertainment value, I can’t remember enjoying a poem more.
Laugh out loud hilarious… written, no doubt, by someone who has spent many, many hours at the library.
Some amazing images – ‘drained drier than a shrunken head’ and ‘You can’t ignite asbestos with a match’ at the fore.
Thanks for the read, Joseph.
Dear Brian — Thank you for your kind words. I thought of the name “Pru-dence Huntleigh” first, many years ago, while doing an exercise in calligraphy. “Prudence Huntleigh” comes out quite perfectly when you are writing eighteenth-century cursive script. I remembered it for this poem, and it did pass through my mind that “Leigh Hunt’ was an important nineteenth-century poet and critic. But the main inspiration was your brief comment at the thread dealing with Susan Bryant’s poem.
This was too much, Joseph. Each successive line exploded with another wry turn on the main theme and kept me laughing to the end. The pace was perfect for unfolding the densely-packed meanings with utter clarity and for not letting the discrete elements of expression bleed into one another. Here were some of the best one-liners capping off the preceding lines I have ever read.
Many thanks, Kip. As a male, I have always had a thing for prim, proper, bookish women.
Yeah, no kidding, Joseph. That came through clearly, and I share your predilection.
I regard it as very important that a poem be factually accurate. We might validly fictionalise to some extent. However scientific and social accuracy in poetry remains an important principle. I have completely rewritten poems for this reason.
A gross inaccuracy forms the basis for the trivial cliche of the uptight female librarian. Manning a loans desk is not the work of a librarian, even though a librarian might step in at need.
Big deal.
I would submit, Murray, that no good poem ever written was entirely factually accurate. Yes, a certain phenotype might become a stereotype, but the existence of stereotypes only proves that such a phenotype exists. And that is as factually accurate as anything can be.
Mr Salemi, what a wonderful shaft of humour to brighten up these dark days. As others have remarked, I love the asbestos/match line, and the final punch-line is genius. Our Benny Hill would have loved this. Thanks for a great laugh tonight.
Magnificently composed, Joseph, and with more zingers than I could think up in a year. Per Mr. Alfredson’s comment above, I as a former librarian would say your poem does beg a rejoinder, for even though he’s right, if irrelevant, about where librarians typically work (the back room, not the circ desk), the model of the modern librarian (female or male; I suspect it was a librarian who came up with the epithet “Conan the librarian”) leaves plenty of room for skewering. I hope librarians take note, take umbrage imaginatively, or take the joke in the spirit and with the zest you show here.
To reassure all librarians, let me inform them that at the time of the composition of this poem, Miss Prudence Huntleigh (Head Librarian) was indeed manning the front circulation desk at the Aberystwyth Book Resource Center, because of the absence of her subordinate staffer Mrs. Ethyl Lloyd-Cunningham, who was out ill with influenza for more than two weeks. For this reason, the poem is completely in accord with actual reality, and contains no gross inaccuracy.
Thank you for this illuminating backstory which really clears things up. Now we need to go after Meredith Willson for his wildly inaccurate depiction of Marian, the Librarian in “The Music Man.”
Willson’s imagining was another clever take on the cliche. However, especially considering that Marian was the liberal in a sea of conservatives, he may have been a bit closer that aspect of 1908 small-town Iowa than we want to give him credit for.
Quite, quite brilliant Joe – I absolutely guffawed over this one. Aside from the climactic last line, I especially loved the imagery of ‘You can’t ignite asbestos with a match.’ Definitely a tour de force – well done.
The stereotypical librarian taken to hedonistic heights using the magnificent medium of excellent poetry has made me smile. The fact that the poem was inspired by Brian’s superb and entertaining comment on “A Bibliophile’s Betrothal” proves what a wonderful place the SCP is for poets to hang out. Great stuff!
Great read. I can tell you had fun writing it, and I had fun reading it. Isn’t it nice when a poem can just be fun?
If we can’t have a serious laugh at the expense of serious librarians what’s the world coming to? “While you’re drained drier than a shrunken head” is also a favorite line for me. This is a most entertaining read.
Joseph, all I can say is your poem is both hilarious and brilliant.
Though it seems, no matter the field, all men have the same set of groupthink paints in their pallet. 🙂
Many thanks, Tamara. As for us men, I guess you could say that Aphrodite is the great equalizer.
LOL! Yes, you are correct.
She was some kind of woman, 🙂
I was surprised to see she had affairs with all the Olympians except Zeus and Hades.
Well, having sex with Zeus would have been real trouble, because of the violent jealousy of his wife Hera. Hera always managed to avenge herself on the female partner of her husband’s adultery. As for Hades, he was a dark and scary god associated with the dead, so an affair with him would be comparable to one with Count Dracula. I can understand why Aphrodite didn’t fancy him.
Wow! Now that’s amazing. 🙂
Joseph, you appear to be an expert on the subject of Greek mythology.
Although I purchased two paintings on parchment; one of Artemis and the other of Aphrodite, when I visited Greece two decades ago. my interest was in archaeology.
Artemis was the Greek goddess of the hunt. Wonder what she was hunting?
Men, I guess. LOL!
No, Artemis was a sworn virgin — just like Athena and Hestia.
Oh, O.K.! So, Artemis doesn’t hunt.
Wiki has her listed as the goddess of the hunt. Must be a mistake.
“Artemis (/ˈɑːrtɪmɪs/; Greek: Ἄρτεμις) is the Greek goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, the Moon, and chastity.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis
That’s why I said “She’s some kind of woman.” LOL!
She’s a virgin, but she does hunt and kill animals sometimes. Think of her as a kind of female forest ranger. Like her twin brother Apollo, she carries a bow and arrow, and is a crack shot with it. Coincidentally, I will be lecturing on Artemis tonight at my teaching job. Everything that Wikipedia entry says is correct.
Female forest ranger. LOL!
Sounds like something I would have heard from either the sailors, marines or seabees, when I was in the Navy (WAVES). I worked in the Top Secret Message Center during the Bay of Pigs. You wouldn’t believe some of their stories.
Good luck with your lecture. Bet you’ll have a fairly large audience.
Joseph, sorry, I said “Bay of Pigs,” but the year was 1964 and in actuality it was the cold war with Nikita Khrushchev. This was during the Vietnam war.
Tamara, if you ask Evan Mantyk to send me your postal mailing address, I’ll send you copies of TRINACRIA that contain poems by a woman who worked in military intelligence in the 1960s and 70s. I think you’ll like them.
I never suggest that anybody put their postal address or e-mail address up here at a public site, since it is a security risk.
Thank you Joseph. I’ll contact Evan.
I would appreciate a copy of TRINACRIA. If the woman, to which you refer, was in the Navy, I might know her.
I’ll also send you postage.