Talk:Grolier Poetry Bookshop

Recollections

I remember Gordon Cairnie and his wife Anna. My mother and I were over to their Belmont home for dinner. I took care of things in the bookshop when Gordon had to go on errands. I'd write listings of the transactions when customers stopped by for books. I slept on the couch a few times. George Burrows, a Deacon of the First Parish in Cambridge stopped in regularly. He lived upstairs. Harvard Police Chief Bob Tonis, one of the most amicable of people, stopped in from time to time. Elsa Dorfman took photos. Carey Wasserman made a great photo of the bookshop facade with a few regulars when Judge Charles Wyzanski visited. dsaklad@zurich.csail.mit.edu 31 December 2006

LOUISA SOLANO & THE GROLIER POETRY BOOK SHOP - Edited by Doug Holder & Steve Glines. ($10) This is a collection of anecdotes by poets who have patronized the famed Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Harvard Square over the years. Also: an exclusive interview with Louisa Solano, the former owner, who recounts her experiences with Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Robert Lowell, Donald Hall and others. Contributors include: Afaa Michael Weaver, Deborah M. Priestly, Linda Haviland Conte, Lyn Lifshin and other poets. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.217.134.101 (talk) 00:54, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

"...ignore bills as they piled up and turn a blind eye to theft."

Gordon may have been late paying bills,but if he had not paid them, publishing houses would have cut him off completely. He would never have beeen able to order any new books. Theft worried him all the time - one of the things that he hated was running down Plympton St. after somebody and having to ask them to open their coats. 17:53, 30 August 2015 (UTC)Jean Cairnie Castles — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.161.87.123 (talk)

"....original financially comfortable were able to run the business at a loss..."

I am Gordon Cairnie's daughter and he and mother were perhaps financially comfortable before the 2nd World War, but because of inflation, a fixed income, were always hard up during my childhood and college years. When the store opened, mother helped my father a lot, but as the years went by, he helped with the finances. Jean Cairnie Castles 71.161.87.123 (talk) 18:07, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

" he held court while admirers lounged on the...couch."

George Abbott White wrote in the Boston Globe on Aug 4, 1973: "Like Keats he was the center of differences and he utterly refused to be a dictator of a coterie or master of a saloon...He kept us in touch with laughter and gossip and endless introductions...a crucial part of our world slowly beat a path to his door, along with famous judges, ardent revolutionaries, lonely old men and woman, stray puppies...he was that good." That was his magic - he loved them all. 71.161.87.123 (talk) 18:26, 30 August 2015 (UTC) Jean Cairnie Castles

"But Gordon would have been unsuited to teaching, he had a prejudice against female poets..."

Jean Cairnie (talk) 20:32, 21 September 2015 (UTC)Jean Cairnie: My father was no misogynist, he had no prejudice against women. He encouraged female as well as male poets. Their pictures were on the store walls and he often babysat babies in the back room. Many women were part of the 'inner circle'.Jean Cairnie (talk) 20:32, 21 September 2015 (UTC) jgcastles36@gmail.com