I can’t believe it took me more than a decade of living in NYC to discover Poets House, a public poetry library that’s home to readings, talks, performances, classes, a massive poetry collection, and a gorgeous view of the Hudson River.

Now that I have, I will be visiting this gem of a library more often. I love the sunlit interior where you can sit at a table or a luxurious leather sofa to read one or more of the 70,000+ volumes available here. The space isn’t huge, but that also means you’re right next to stacks and stacks of books that you can easily browse and read after you finish or tire of the current one. I found a book on Miklós Radnóti, who, I learned that day, was one of the greatest Hungarian poets of the 20th century. I read a few poems from the book China’s Classic Anthology of T’ang and Sung Dynasty Verse. I also read Creole Echoes: The Francophone Poetry of Nineteenth-Century Louisiana, an anthology of poems that brought me back to the life and culture of the Creole people in 19th Century Louisiana.

Once in a while, I looked out the large windows at the glistening waters of the Hudson and marveled at how lucky I was to have the luxury and good fortune of learning and reading at such a beautiful space, all for the price of nothing.