Musings on the Archive

This post is in dedication to the Through the Door project. Where poets will take up residence in an archive to write about the collections and general aura of the archive. It has recently been advertised on the listserv so for archives to join the scheme and have a poet visit them in 2011.  I am no real poet but by some amazing good luck I am an archivist .

I also thought it was high time to actually did some ‘proper’ musings on the world that we (archivists) inhabit daily. Whether the Search Room  or the back office cataloguing.

So here are my attempts to be both poet and archivist. 

Quiet but busy industry.

Pools of knowledge,

Islands of thought.

The researcher wades through records

Inspecting every line, waiting for a catch.

The archivist surveying the archipelago

Blossoming throughout the day.

 

___________________________________________________

The archivist tries to leaves no trace.

The model is revived.

A tree grows from the seeds left discarded in attics and basements

Ghost germination.

__________________________________________________

A statement, a relevance, the way between worlds. Everyman’s yesterday, today and tomorrow. This is your archives.

___________________________________________________

So there you have it. Ramblings of an archivist! Maybe I should stick to the day job! I am sure many of you could do much better than this, I found myself being drawn to nature throughout. I have no real idea why, but it felt right as I was scribbling it all down late last night. Why does the urge to write come when you really should be sleeping?!

Anyway I hope you enjoyed and feel what we do isn’t as humdrum as we think it is on a gloomy winters day.