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

Anne Blonstein (1958-2011) RIP

We were contacted this morning by Charles Lock informing us that Anne Blonstein had died on April 19th. It was conveyed to us in the following manner, that Anne would be very pleased to know her chapbook that those lips had language was going to be in the Beinecke. He then told me that she had died of cancer. Here's a brief obit and her current Wikipedia page link. The page does not yet mention her death:

Anne Blonstein

Anne , poet, died (cancer) in the Ita Wegman Clinic, Arlesheim, Switzerland, on 19 April 2011. Born on 22 April 1958, she had lived since 1983 in Basel; she leaves a brother, Steven. A celebratory reading will be held in Basel later this year.

Anne Blonstein

I had the pleasure of reading the mss. "that those lips had language" during our 2004 poetry chapbook contest and while I didn't believe it would win, I decided to keep the copy aside and return to it later. Which I did the following year when it published it, our first European poet, with much "across the pond" issues and problems mostly centered around Anne's insistence at using as her cover image a piece of art by Aloise Corbaz. It was also our first chapbook to have 4 prices in 4 different currencies listed on the back.

Anne and I had kept in touch even as her publishing fortunes improved and Plan B continued to add new poets and titles. Until illness forced her focus on sheer survival and I, not the worse for my ignorance, kept including her in our email blasts about new books and readings.

She's left us with a body of work, which for a writer is what needs to be left. The work. A clean body of that when the physical one betrays us.

end of the typewriter

a technology barely 100 years old is about to go the way of the Dodo bird


Last Typewriter Factory Closes


Many a writer will be greatly disheartened. It's a bit sad to be sure. I like manual typewriters more than electric ones. My personal preference.


long live the typewrite and all the words that were produced thusly.


till soon


stevenallenmay

want to share a bit of WOW

was notified earlier today that a copy of everything that Plan B Press has in print has been ordered by Yale University. That's right, Plan B Press books will be in the Yale library very soon! Exciting stuff!!

and now, we have a winner.....

Congratulations go out to Michael Fallon for his collection, Since You Have No Body. Winner of the 2011 poetry chapbook contest.

the entanglements of e-books

so, problems that don't exist with physical books - when to "erase" text! From the NY Times, Publishers and Libraries struggle over terms of e-books

more things to consider when wanting your work to go digital.

we could always coordinate by color

Home Decor for Bookworms


some people think of books as color swaths. ugh

tattooed poetry

I don't think I am really to go here but it certainly is an interesting conceptual idea. I haven't sat down and watched ten minutes of single word poetry reading but -

it does remind me of a photographer I knew in the 1990s who wrote a poem in three parts across the naked chests of three different people and then photographed the piece. It's similar to that.

and it's a permanent poem that has yet to be "captured" on paper.


enjoy!