Appalachian Journal’s online journal, As the Crow Flies, released its second edition on December 15. Featured in the publication is poetry by library faculty, Allan Scherlen.
Also, Allan wrote a poem honoring Dr. Barbara Freiman. It was read at a reception last week to celebrate her Honorary Doctorate from App State.
Legacy in the Library
Poem commissioned in honor of Barbara Foard Freiman, on the occasion of her receiving an honorary degree from Appalachian State University.
December, 2025
Passing by the library’s makerspace
she hears the hum of creation,
students coaxing masks from molten plastic,
bones from filaments,
costumes stitched with quiet resolve.
In comers, circuits spark to life,
soldered with care,
ideas leaping from mind to hand,
each invention a whisper
of what might come next.
Some gifts are not loud–
they arrive as open doors,
as scholarships for students,
as rooms where silence
becomes sanctuary.
In the Freiman Family Study Room,
its hush is a kind welcome.
Here, solitude is not loneliness,
but a place to begin again,
to imagine, to write, to rest.
It takes her belief in futures unseen,
in the slow bloom of learning,
to build such spaces–
to leave behind
a legacy that nurtures.
-Allan Scherlen
Professor Allan Scherlen is an accomplished poet and social science librarian at Appalachian State University Libraries. The mountains and the music of the region have inspired his poetry. They appear in many journals including the Appalachian Journal, As the Crow Flies, Progenitor, Vermilion of the Catholic University of America, The Hong Kong Review, and Galway Review in Ireland.