Today I was tagged by Danny Thornton for a Meme of sorts. While I really enjoy writing, I find Meme's a bit taxing as I prefer to divulge aspects of my personality through metaphor and story. Knowing that, I am happy to say that I have always played along when I am tagged; have you? Needless to say, I rolled my eyes a bit at the thought of writing a Meme; then I read the guidelines and thought, well this is different. I like the twist and while it does divulge aspect's of the writer's personality, it does it through the books the writer surrounds themself with. Check out the guidelines for the Bookworm Meme below.

The concept is quite simple. Here is how it works.

1. Grab the nearest book.

2. Open the book to page 56.

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the text of the next two to five sentences.

5. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book or the intellectual one. Pick the Closest.

6. Tag five people to do the same

*The one book that this can not be is the Bible*

I actually have two books on my desk but since they are stacked on top of each other I will use the book on top. The book is entitled a Journey of Poems: An Original Anthology Of Verse Pope / Tennyson / Frost / Byron / Auden / Updike and forty-nine others. I tried to find a picture of it but could not (it was published in 1964), so I scanned it!

So page 56 is a couple of pages into Samuel Taylor Coolridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. As there really aren't sentences but stanzas, I have decided to post the 6th and 7th stanza.

"About, about, in reel and rout

The death-fires danced at night;

The water, like a witch's oils,

Burnt green, and blue, and white.

"And some in dreams assured were

Of the Spirit that plagued us so;

Nine fathom deep he had followed us

From the land of mist and snow.

I must admit that The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is one of my favorite poems. I am happy this tattered little book was on my desk and that page 56 just happend to have such a wonderful poem.

So now I tag five people:

Joan Mirantz

Carol Smith

Karen Anne Stone

Julie Kippen

Deborah Pearce