On finding a funky little bookstore, the poet H.D. and Edwin O’Connor (TSS)

Two Wednesdays ago, I had an appointment in Williamsport, Pa. in the early afternoon and had some time to kill afterwards before picking up my wife from work. So I thought why not try to find a Catholic bookstore where I might could find a guide for the Liturgy of the Hours and the Shorter Book of Christian Prayer for this year, since we’re a little behind. I borrowed a phone book at the local Wegman’s and while I couldn’t find a Catholic bookstore, I did find a funky little bookstore that I learned was on a backstreet.

The owner told me where the store was and said he might have something in which I’d be interested. At this point, I thought, “Uh oh, is this some kind of New Age bookstore where the owner is going to try to give me crystals or something?” However, I thought I’d take a chance anyway and see for myself what this store was.

The store, The Last Hurrah Bookshop, is set in a three-story house on 937 Memorial Avenue in Williamsport. It wasn’t easy to find, but once I found it, its owner Any Winiarczyk, was very helpful. He explained that even though he personally is Catholic, he didn’t have the guides for which I was looking. The store, he told me, specializes in books on assassinations, the Kennedys, espionage, conspiracies, Cuba, organize crime, WWII, poetry and American politics. Hours are by appointment.

Since I was there already, I decided I might as well look around the shop anyway. He pointed me in the direction of the poetry, which was in the attic of the house. After searching through the stacks of books, some lining the floor, there, I found two books that piqued my interest: Collected Poems: 1912-1944 by the American Imagist poet H.D. and Toward a New Poetry by Diane Wakoski, a part of the Poets on Poetry series from the University of Michigan. As a student at Messiah College, I studied poetry and even wrote a little, and have been thinking about getting back into it, possibly even to teach. I thought the Wakoski book might help in that regard.

As for H.D., I always enjoyed her poetry when I had encountered it in poetry classes in college. I’m not real familiar with her work, so I thought this would be an opportunity to become more familiar with it. For more on H.D., who was a contemporary of Ezra Pound and Marianne Moore, many brief biographies are available online, including this one at Poets.org. Here is one of her most famous poems, Oread:

Whirl up, sea—
Whirl your pointed pines.
Splash your great pines
On our rocks.
Hurl your green over us—
Cover us with your pools of fir.

Before I left, Winiarczyk gave me a copy of The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O’Connor, who also was the author of The Last Hurrah, the namesake of the shop. Andy explained to me that he had attended Notre Dame University where O’Connor also attended. Andy said he bought up extra copies of O’Connor’s book, especially The Edge of Sadness, which he considered to be O’Connor’s greatest work to give away to people who visited the store. I could not find as much information online about O’Connor as I could H.D. so I will leave the search to you if you are interested in finding out more about him. The Edge of Sadness won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for 1962.

Andy also gave me a copy of the 2008 edition of the Pennsylvania Antiquarians Booksellers Directory, a list of bookstores across the state collected by a friend of his, Linda Roller, owner of Liberty Bookshop, in nearby Avis, Pa. More information is available on the Pennsylvania booksellers’ web site.

While I didn’t find for what I was searching, I found instead unexpected treasures, namely the H.D. collection and the O’Connor book. All in all, it was a nice diversion before having to return to pick up my wife from work, plus, bonus, I wasn’t saddled with any New Age literature or items.

Next week: More on O’Connor’s The Edge of Sadness.