SMALL PRESSES, POETRY, AND THE CLASSROOM
[excerpted from a Poetics list posting]
Charles Alexander

Steve Evans has asked me to elaborate on what one might do to contest the
disappearance of poetry from "serious consumer culture," as someone put it
in an earlier post. I would hope the culture includes serious consumers of
poetry, and as Charles Bernstein so eloquently puts it in his long essay,
which he also delivered at the "Art & Language" symposium at Minnesota
Center for Book Arts in April of 1994, it does so include them (even
everyone on this list).

So, here are some more earthly suggestions, not earthly delights, at least
not in themselves.

This may come in two or more posts over the next several days. The first
one is mostly directed toward what you can do at bookstores. If your only
bookstore is Barnes & Noble, you may be lost. Managers of the chains,
unfortunately, have very little independence in what they are allowed to
carry. But you can ask them.

But here goes:

First, talk to your booksellers. Get to know them. Make requests
personally as well as through slips of paper called order forms. Encourage
them to obtain the specific books you want. If they are receptive, ask
them to carry representative work from presses you like. Let them know
that SPD will tailor orders specifically for a particular bookstore and
make it easy for the bookseller. But you have to persuade these
booksellers NOT ONLY that these are important books, but that, MORE
IMPORTANTLY, that, given a decent chance, they will sell.

Get your friends & people with similar ideas to do the same. Hearing it
from one voice will not move a bookseller. Hearing from five to ten might.
Hearing it from twenty will.

Then -- buy the books, & make sure those friends buy them, too. This will
make the bookseller very happy, perhaps even make her trust your future
recommendations. Tell your students to buy these books. Submit reviews to
your local paper, especially when there is a local connection -- but, hey,
the disappearance of poetry is a good story. You could even write about
that and about what you & some local cohorts are trying to do about it.

You may end up negotiating regular 10 to 15% discounts on these books for
members of a reading group or other association. But don't push for the
discount first. Despite how much you may detest consumer culture, please
help the booksellers make money by selling these books. It helps the books
survive.

Hold readings at the bookstore & let the bookseller make selling the books
a featured part of the readings. Have reading & discussion groups meet
there if this is at all possible.

If you achieve a good relationship with the bookseller, ask if you can
have 6 inches of shelf space in the store to create a "poetry books of the
month" corner. And, again, get people to buy these books.

If you teach at a university, or are a student, by all means do all this
(& anything more you can invent) at your university bookstore or local
store which serves the university community.

Also, if you teach -- USE small press books. In seminars on contemporary
writing, use several -- maybe even use small press books exclusively. In
large survey classes, use some small press books. Try to get the bookstore
to order directly from the small presses (stores pay no more, & the
presses are able to give a smaller discount than is required by
distributors or book "jobbers") or from SPD (which helps support the
entire field). It's ironic that I know several people teaching at major
universities, yet only twice in the last four years have i received, for
Chax Press books, orders for 40 or more books for a class. Every small
press, every day, is on the verge of disappearing. If they do, then we
won't have to worry about poetry books being in bookstores. There will be
no poetry books. In the fall of 1993, when the University of Toronto
bookstore ordered $1,000 worth of bp Nichol's ART FACTS from Chax, it
literally saved the press. Such orders, to the presses you care about,
should occur at least a few times every year. If you teach contemporary,
or even 20th Century writing, & don't use contemporary small press books
(& a variety of them, not just from the biggest of the small presses),
shame on you. You are contributing to the disappearance of poetry.

Why not teach a  contemporary writing class which uses a book from Sun &
Moon, one from O Books, one from The Figures, one from Potes & Poets, one
from Chax, one from Roof? Why not use one or two of these books (& not
always from the same press) next time you teach a large survey class?

I read in an earlier post that Don Byrd doesn't buy poetry; people or
presses give it to him. He is then getting a marvelous service. I hope he
contributes money and time to the presses he cares about, and I hope he
teaches their books in his courses.

I remind myself now that I am addressing myself to a poetics list. I read
poetics & theory of various kinds & enjoy this reading. I also read a lot
of poetry. What are your reading habits? What are your buying habits? How
much money do you spend each year on books of poetics, criticism, and
theory? Consider spending an equal amount on poetry. It will help immensely.

And please don't go into your local bookstore, notice no innovative or
invigorating poetry on the shelves, and complain outside the walls of the
bookstore, without doing anything to try and change the situation.

Thank you for reading this.

Read poetry. Buy poetry.

Next time I'll try to convince to contribute to presses & literary
organizations.

By the way, I applaud Talking Leaves, as I do Woodland Pattern in
Milwaukee, Bick's Books in Washington, the bookstore at SPD in Berkeley,
and only a very few others I know about. But I've found some very good
books in The Bookstore in Lennox, Massachusetts, and elsewhere. I feel
like someone's had a good idea when I find even one fugitive and fine
poetry book on a bookstore's shelf.

And I am grateful to Charles Bernstein for bringing up the increasing role
being played by on-line bookstores and informational services.

Does the book on the shelf struggle for its pages to be open, resisting
the heavy air? Come to think of it, it used to keep me awake that a book
spends perhaps 99% of its life closed. Now I think that once it's been
opened, it is really never closed. There's a confusion of the physical
with another realm, yes?

        charles alexander