When R. Diskin Black and I discussed promoting his then upcoming poetry memoir, buried under snow in our prospective neighborhoods, I mentioned we could find some new-to-us North Jersey bookstores randomly and make an adventure out of it. He could take the NJ Transit train from New York City, and I could fire up my Volkswagen Jetta and let the Turbo glide down Route 78.
I mentioned it again earlier this summer and insisted that we set a date. And so we did. That day was today.
I think Ray was still a tad perplexed with why I’d randomly drive 60 miles for no real reason. We touched base on Tuesday. And Ray asked if I’d done any planning. And of course I hadn’t. I looked at the NJ Transit Map and matched it with a Google Map of independent bookstores along Route 78 . Then I asked the internet for the best independent bookstores in New Jersey.
This was the list I sent Ray:
– The Collective Bookshop, Verona
– The Bookworm, Bernardsville
– Here’s the Story, Union
– [words], Maplewood
– Monty & Milo, Somerville
The weather threatened torrential rain— we’d email each other Thursday and if the weather held, we’d visit Maplewood. (Have any of you visited any of the others? Do let me know.)
I also suggested having lunch at a diner if that would suit, and Ray gave a classic reply:
“There’s nothing better than a Jersey diner.”
Is he wrong?
The weather today was perfect. Ray and I visited [words] which had a wide variety of books reflecting unique voices and diverse perspectives. They had a clean, well-curated, and welcoming store. We read that they employed people with autism. And I found quite a few LGBTQ books, a few witchy books, and a few things I’ve wanted to see in person.
And — on the wall behind the register— they had ALPHABOOKS! I thought perhaps I had found a source where I could potentially buy them, and from an independent bookseller, but alas, alack, they were decoration. And I showed the staff person behind the desk my M book and she had no idea they were journals.
Speaking of Mr. Black, Poet Jennifer Bartlett offered her comprehensive thoughts on The Night of Swaying Grass in a recent Substack newsletter.
Ray reminds us that he was lucky and unlucky at once (as all humans are). As a person who had a summer full of sorrow, excitement, boredom and joy, the last few lines really stood out to me. We follow Ray from his birth where he wonders (again) what we all wonder Will I turn out to be the hero of my life? through boyhood without a father, to love affairs and crushes, Annie Lennox coming from a CD player “on the Castro,” 9/11 in New York City, and the blunt poem Fuck the Nazis. Later in the book come poems about wildfires burning America, the Death of Democracy, and yes, a beauty ode to cats.
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