I can't find my Norton Anthology of Poetry

I don't mean *the* Norton Anthology of Poetry

which can be purchased from any bookstore

I mean *my* Norton Anthology of Poetry

or, more specifically, my friend Chip's Norton Anthology of Poetry

that I borrowed from him in 11th grade and then eventually stole.

The 3rd edition of the Norton Anthology of Poetry is a deeply flawed book

for one thing, it contains almost no poems from the last 40 years

on account of having been published 35 years ago

but it is *my* deeply flawed book, or at the very least, Chip's

and I can't find it. One of the central facts of my life is that

no matter how many times I reorganize my home library

in any given moment I will. not. be able

to find the book that I desperately *need*

Like, I can always find the New York Public Library's guide to organizing your home library

*except* when I'm embarking on a library reorganization

And I can always find my 9th grade copy of

100 poems by e e cummings

*except* when it's March and I want quote that poem about

Spring being like a "perhaps hand which comes carefully out of Nowhere" etc.

Right now I have no problem locating Everything You Need To Know About The Goth Scene

I can find plenty of copies of the Swedish edition of

Turtles All The Way Down, and its AMAZING cover

but I can not find my Norton Anthology of Poetry

It's not with the poetry

It's not with the Hot Wheels Ultimate track

It's not in the bookshelf behind our bed

And it's not in the background of this video set, although while we're here...

Two books I've really enjoyed reading recently are

this extraordinarily engrossing biography of Joseph Conrad, which are not words I ever thought I would say

and Dactyl Hill Squad which doesn't come out until September

but I've been reading an advanced copy with Henry

it's about orphans in the Civil War who ride dinosaurs and IT IS AMAZING

but that is a tangent WHERE IS MY Norton Anthology of Poetry!

I mean this is ridiculous. I've been looking for my Norton Anthology of Poetry for an entire day

I haven't been able to write a vlogbrothers script because

I've been looking for my Norton Anthology of Poetry, which, ergo,

*has* to become the topic of today's vlogbrothers video

IT'S A THREE POINT TWO POUND BOOK. Nobody like takes a 3.2 pound book on vacation and leaves it there.

And yes I know that I could just google the poem I want to read but

I don't *want* to google it, I want to read it in my Norton Anthology of Poetry

which HAS to be somewhere in this house

I mean it's not like I would have taken it out of the h- ...

[whispered] wait a second

Could it be at the office?

Okay I'm going to drive to the office to look for my

Norton Anthology of Poetry and if I don't find it I *am* going to let it go.

*maybe*

I'm on my way to my office. C'mon, big money, no whammies!

YES! YES! YES! My Norton Anthology of Poetry!

YEEEEAAAASSSSSS

[reading whole poem] The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book. The house was quiet and the world was calm

The words were spoken as if there was no book, Except that the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom

The summer night is like a perfection of thought. The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind: The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world, In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself Is the reader leaning late and reading there

Oh! it's every bit as good as I remember

and just what I needed today.

Hank, I will see you on Friday.