In March, participants in the Shirlington Branch Library Poetry Workshop were asked to think of 15 words – words having no particular relevance to each other – and write them down in list form. Then the writers were then asked to pass their lists to the person on their left.

They then used the list to write a three stanza poem, using only 5 of the words per stanza.

Here is one of the results:

The Embroiderer, by Marcia Montenegro

She sat below walls
Covered with blessings –
Hope – Faith – Peace
Sewn into fine linen
Embroidered for life
Behind glassy frames.
But what of despair? Or grief?
She could not sew them,
She could not say them.

Her fervor was only to sew words
That would stay the dementia
That would cross stitch peace
Into a mind with frayed edges.
Harmony – Serenity – Tranquility.
She was creating walls to
Whisper tender intimacies
As her fingers worked faster and faster
Before the threads would break.

The walls became her private poem
Of solitude, a mirror
To her spirit as it faded
With the sun in the west.
Shadows crouched in corners
Ready to swell across the words
And down the walls,
A dark stain of death
Descending, unraveling all.

Learn more about the Poetry Workshop.

Each group worked separately, without knowing what their peers were working on.

Yet when the letters were installed  together for the first time at Shirlington, they formed a fantastic whole!

Everyone at Shirlington is delighted by the hard work and devoted artistic efforts of the students at the Gunston Community Center, the Langston-Brown Community Center, the Lubber Run Community Center and the Walter Reed Community Center.

Thank you!

So the eReader you got as a gift is still gathering dust? You don’t know what to do with it? You’re not alone.

Come to Westover Branch Library and get your eReader up, running and leave with it filled with FREE library eBooks.

A tech guru will be on hand to show you around the device and a librarian will help you find the titles most suited to your reading preferences.

Call or stop by to sign up for a 45-minute session.

So the eReader you got as a gift is still gathering dust? You don’t know what to do with it? You’re not alone.

Come to Westover Branch Library and get your eReader up, running and leave with it filled with FREE library eBooks.

A tech guru will be on hand to show you around the device and a librarian will help you find the titles most suited to your reading preferences.

Call or stop by to sign up for a 45-minute session.

So the eReader you got as a gift is still gathering dust? You don’t know what to do with it? You’re not alone.

Come to Westover Branch Library and get your eReader up, running and leave with it filled with FREE library eBooks.

A tech guru will be on hand to show you around the device and a librarian will help you find the titles most suited to your reading preferences.

Call or stop by to sign up for a 45-minute session.

It may be the most mysterious and brutal place on Earth.

North Korea, the regime created following World War II, remains a totalitarian dictatorship controlled by one family holding nuclear weapons and hundreds of thousands of political prisoners locked away. Malnutrition across the country is the norm while the cult of personality now focuses on a 29-year-old, Kim Jong-un, the youngest head of state in the world.

This June, Arlington Public Library presents two critically acclaimed authors who have recently pulled back some of the heavy veil that hangs over the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”

On June 14, the Friends of Arlington Public Library feature author Adam Johnson, whose novel “The Orphan Master’s Son,” opens a window to everyday life under the North Korean propaganda machine.

And on June 20, PBS “Frontline” correspondent Blaine Harden discusses the story of Shin Dong-hyuk, the only person to escape North Korea after being born and bred inside one of its horrific slave labor camps.

Never far from the headlines, North Korea’s future grew even more clouded with Kim Jong-un’s sudden rise last December following the death of his father.

Arlington Public Library takes you inside North Korea this June to explore the volatility of a nation lost to time and fear.

Former New York Times and Washington Post correspondent Blaine Harden discusses the story of Shin Dong-hyuk, the first person born and raised in a North Korean slave labor camp to escape abroad.

In telling Shin’s story, Harden pulls back the curtain on a regime more enduring but as diabolical as Mao’s, Stalin’s, Hitler’s and Pol Pot’s.

Serving as both a location to find the latest recorded music and a popular gathering spot, Swillers Music is still fondly remembered by longtime Arlington residents. 

Known over the years as Swillers Music, Swillers Music Center, or just Swillers, the store’s location in Clarendon at 1206 N. Hartford St. helped it become a magnet for residents looking for phonograph records of all genres. Turntables, televisions, radios, and related accessories were also kept in stock for the customer’s convenience.

Priding themselves on adding new merchandise on a near daily basis, many local residents found themselves visiting Swillers regularly, enjoying each other’s company, making new friends, or just passing the time. All of this seems quite fitting for a family owned business overseen by president Milton Swiller, vice president Anna Swiller, and treasurer Sydney Swiller.

The first listing for Swillers in an Arlington County directory appeared in 1948, while the last entry is from 1961.

 What About You?

 Do you have any recollections about Swillers Music?  If you do, please share in our comments section. Thanks.

Documentary Series

The high cost — to both the environment and our health — of privatizing our public water sources is the subject of this documentary that enlists activists, environmentalists, community leaders and others to explore the downside of the bottled water industry.

Americans may rethink their obsession with bottled H20 when they learn of the unregulated industry’s tactics, and the problems that arise as a result of outsourcing our public water sources.

Not rated, 75 minutes.

Discussion follows the film; presented in partnership with the Sierra Club.