Sub-Sub Librarian, Extracts on a

The Sub-Sub Librarian is the figure imagined at the beginning of Herman Melville's MOBY DICK who compiles a list of "extracts," or quotations and references, on whales. While Melville cheekily describes this librarian as "painstaking burrower and grubworm of a poor devil," belonging to a "hopeless, sallow tribe," the longest poem of Eric Reymond's new book imagines the Sub-Sub Librarian as experiencing transcendence and illumination through his wide readings. Additional poems build on this theme, finding inspiration in texts as diverse as contemporary poetry, vocabulary quizzes, and course syllabi.