Great piece on what we do to books in NYT 8/28/11

Reading Life-What We Do to Books

Physics for Poets

it defies words, really

older article praising chapbooks

A friend of mine sent me this earlier this summer, but as it's summer it got lost in the shuffle of the season. It's still valid and still true Poetry Pamphlets by John Greening.

quote from The Razor's Edge by Maugham

I am not the greatest fan of W Somerset Maugham but I was speed reading The Razor's Edge and found this wonderful quote (it rings so so true)

"I thought with melancholy how an author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart's blood into it,
and it lies about unread till the reader has nothing else in the world to do."
page 282

exactly. Bingo. Perfect.

from NPR - Book Business beyond Borders

interesting view of language, courtesy of the NY Times

Poetry, Medium and Message

to our Philly roots

An Independent bookseller in Wayne

Found this article and was touched by the on-going difficulties of independent book sellers in the Philadelphia region. Not surprisingly, Plan B Press was not enamored with the Corporate bookstores that gobbled up the market in Philly in the 1990s. They drove many a fine bookseller out of business, only to be driven out of business themselves by the new behemoth, Amazon. However, some people actually like human interaction and a faceless cyber presence isn't their cup of tea.

Circling back to bookstores with real people in them. Knowledgeable folks. Well-read folks. Bookies, for goodness sake! Praise be to them all!

If you live near Wayne, PA, you should stop in and say hello. For everyone else, support independent book sellers and publishers whenever possible!


best

stevenallenmay

Money changed Poetry (magazine)

Poetry Magazine! There's a big story in Chicago Times about the new fortunes (not good but impressively new) of Poetry Magazine which got $200 MILLIONS dollars a decade ago. I don't generally read Poetry but have read about the largess that the Foundation and Magazine received with bemused interest.

What emerges, in my view, is a cautionary tale of what happens when wildest dreams come true. Not what anyone expected - that's the reality! There is so much money that the Foundation Board blew $21 MILLION dollars on new digs for the Magazine (and Foundation?) complete with a 125 seat theater. Nice, but aren't there still a few thousand needy poets starving on the streets of America? Can't help a fellow poet get a meal or a place to stay? That isn't in the new mandate or mission? But, $200,000,000.00 is a large sum of money for 26,000 paying Poetry magazine subscribers, isn't it? What ELSE are you planning to do with your windfall, Poetry Foundation, create a theme park?

I'm just sayin'

What is the definition of a "Small Press"?

There is currently a good deal of buzz surrounding Go The F**k to Sleep by Adam Mansbach and illustrated by Richardo Cortes. While I applaud their efforts and marvel at their impending success, I am nonetheless a bit put off by the notion in the media that the publisher, Akashic Books, is a “small press”. It depends how that term is defined. Compared to the handful of behemoth publishers in the world, certainly Akashic is “small”. At the same time, mostly overlooked in the glowing press about this book and its publisher, is the fact that Akashic was started with $70,000.00 in 2002. That’s right, SEVENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS!

Front-ended, at the beginning, 70K. Considering that many “small Presses” begin with an idea and/or a concept (and nothing else), $70,000.00 is a significant “leg-up” in the publishing world. I happened to have met the principle head of Akashic Books in 2003 at the Lehigh Valley Writers Conference and Johnny Temple came across as an earnest and thoughtful person, a nice enough guy. I am happy for the success of the Press, it gives hope for all “small presses” out there. At the same time, all things are not equal and having that much JUMP on the competition does place Akashic at the upper end of what is “small” in Press terms.

Again, compared to Random House, they are peanuts. Compared to Toothpaste Press or the perishable press limited, two “start up” presses from the 1970’s, Temple’s operation seems to have had an unfair advantage. However, the newsprint media tends to be lazy enough to not distinguish from a truly small press and one that is smaller than a BILLION dollar concern but much more “flush” than a Press that frequents Kinkos to print out their books.

Spoken word artist gunned down in Miami

what does it say about our society when poets are gunned down on the street?

Spoken Word Artist Willie Lee Bell shot in Miami