On dispersing my poetry collection.  Maureen Scott Harris.  21 March 2025 

Dear Friends and Colleagues, 

I’ve spent a bittersweet few weeks going through the poetry collection I’ve  accumulated over 60+ years. What a hoard I’ve gathered, more than I can hang onto now, as I propel myself towards new living quarters in a retirement community. 

At heart I’m a hoarder, so deciding what to keep has been a parlous but rich experience. I’ve paged books, read and reread poems, remembered occasions and places and faces, with much pleasure and some pangs. I write now to say thank you for the richness your words and books have brought me.  

Poetry, for me, lives in the gift economy and gifts remain alive through being shared. So I write also to say, if you find a book you’ve inscribed to me on a bookstore shelf or table somewhere, I hope whatever pang that occasions will be eased, knowing I’ve released it from my hoarding grasp to be found by, and enrich, new readers.