MISSOULA — A little library on Sherwood Street is prompting big thoughts with its poetry collection and groups that gather there.
"We've collected about like 600 books from national and international presses and also been able to garner some donations from local community members," Please Poetry Library co-founder Celia Easton Koehler said.
Learn more about the Please Poetry Library:
Poetry isn’t just Shakespearean sonnets and rambling rhymes with meaning behind every single word.
“Poetry is just a good way to engage our skills of observation and attention and connection with our surroundings," Easton Koehler said.
For Koehler and other co-founder Alicia Watkinson, reading poetry is about being present with a text.
“Sure, there are many poems that are a meaning-making venture, but many poems just actually want you to sit and engage with them in an honest way," Koehler detailed.
Please Poetry Library was born from the duo’s radio show. The physical space is about being with art and each other.
"Thinking about what libraries do and also like humans and how humans come together and they gather and then circulate," Watkinson said.
"Opening the space up and hopefully creating an opportunity for people to meet people that they've never met before in the same way that you might pick up a book and interact with a book that you've never read before," she continued.
Creating connections is why the library has been open for book check out and gatherings since May.
“Really hoping to be hosting more and also want to be very open to public proposals for the use of the space," Koehler said.
One dinner deal that has cultivated a consistent start-of-the-week tradition is soup night.
“We have a work trade with our landlord and we make him dinner once a week Monday nights," Watkinson stated. “We were like let's open this up and feed more people. Transform into like a community collaborative space," she continued.
Daily hours haven’t been established quite yet. Click here to view the library’s calendar.
