What is wrong with poetry?(Part #1)

Awhile back I asked this question to several people who live in the world of poetry. Writers of it, editors of it, professional advocates for this praised and defamed form. The question can be looked at in a variety of ways: is it earnest or antagonistic or foolish or too difficult to answer? I got some great responses and have decided to split this post into five parts. Batting lead-off is Patricia Kirkpatrick--whose most recent book, "Odessa" from Milkweed Editions, won the MN Book Award for Poetry.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH POETRY?

Nothing is wrong with poetry. National Poetry Month occurs in April. Garrison Keillor reads poetry daily on the radio. Poetry appears online. Poetry slams bring people who haven’t come–or been invited–to poetry before. The Poetry Foundation website–among others–offers lists of poems about gardening or getting married. College creative writing programs are burgeoning and the enrollments–and tuition payments-of students who want to study writing and become writers keep traditional English
programs afloat. Teachers complain that more people want to write poetry than
to read it, and there’s some truth to that. But poetry is alive if not always well. I sense that poetry is showing up more often and more meaningfully in the daily lives of Americans than it has for a long time. I’m guessing that the question “What is wrong with poetry?” has something to do with the fact that not a lot of people, other than poets and sometimes not even poets, want to read it. Does ‘wrong’ mean ‘difficult?’ Does ‘difficult’mean ‘inaccessible?’Does ‘inaccessible’ mean ‘wrong?’What is right about poetry is that, as Kurt Vonnegut once noted, poets extend the language and we live with, if not in, language. What is right about poetry is that,confused or grief-stricken, inspired or passionate, dreaming or melancholy, we share it when we fall in love, a child dies, or a bridge is built. And beautiful, charged, mysterious, and crafted poems are being written. Of course poetry can be difficult to read and even obscure. Sometimes a poem baffles me so completely, I change the question to ‘what is wrong with me?’


An aside. There is a current of contemporary poetry thought of as experimental or hybrid which, influenced by philosophy, other media, and science as well as literature, favors the process of writing a poem over its resolution. Such hybrid poems, according to Cole Swenson, “honor the avant-garde mandate to renew the forms and expand the boundaries of poetry—thereby increasing the expressive potential of language itself….” I went to graduate school in San Francisco when the influencial “Language Poets” were prominent, but I was influenced not converted.

Poetry is difficult because we live in difficult times. More difficult than other times? Muriel Rukeyser writes in The Life of Poetry published in 1949, years before people were multitasking with cell phones or American school children were slaughtered in classrooms, “The angry things that have been said about our poetry have also been said about our time. They are both ‘confused,’ ‘chaotic,’ ‘violent,‘obscure.’” Much that is often cited as confusing and chaotic in poetry, the unrhymed lines, the quick jumps and juxtapositions, have been qualities of poetry for hundreds of years.


Poetry is difficult because its concentrated patterns of language and silence create intersections between the visible and invisible worlds. Poetry isn’t journalism or sociology or simply anecdotes. A poem doesn’t have a right answer or mean one thing despite how many teachers have insisted to students that it does. Poetry is difficult because there’s a lot of it out there, some of it not very good, and how do you know where to begin or learn to tell the good from the bad? Poetry is difficult because to write or read it requires time, sometimes patience, often solitude or at the least quiet. People are busy; overworked, underpaid. Some people don’t read anything: novels, the newspaper, the positions of political candidates whose decisions will affect their lives.


South African playwright Athol Fugard once complained that there are so many incredible stories in America and “nobody is telling them.” I don’t take that to mean poets should write more narrative poetry. Poet Jim Moore used to ask his students what books of poetry they would take to the hospital. I ‘ve been to the hospital, where I had a baseball sized brain tumor removed from my skull, and I know what books I took. This is from “If Time is An Engine,” by Eleanor Lerman in The Mystery of Meteors.

“The sky is blue by day, blue in the evening/but I know the way of the hidden stars/and I’m still alive, I still know secrets/There is nothing I have left undone/ So my keys are on the table./ You can sell my/ clothes…”

How difficult should poetry become? Is there a tipping point at which a poetry’s difficulty overtakes its ability to be read or received by someone other than the poet?

2

I think poets should be concerned with those questions.If you are a poet, who do you want to read your poetry? If you are a reader, when was the last time you read a book of poetry? Gave a poem to a child? Copied a poem in your own handwriting? I love remembering what I once heard Mark Doty say: the longer you can stay underwater, the further you can see in the dark.

If you don’t respond to one poem, choose another. The poets are there: Oliver, Dickinson, Howe. Rasmussen, Clifton, Sheck. Transtromer, Sutphen, Farah. Li Ch’ing-Chao, Sayers, Yau. The poets are there, and I believe the readers are too, especially if the rest of us, writers, teachers, editors, parents, and booksellers, help us find each other.

Patricia Kirkpatrick, August 2013

A Book with planes, trains and automobiles

There was once a time in a land and era far away when one could peek at the bookcase(s) and record and/or cd collections of the person they were dating. This has now changed with the world that is much more digital. Recently I have done some travel via plane, train(MN light-rail and D.C. Metro) and automobile. My research methods are not exhaustive or solid given the sample size but there is one reality that is hard to escape--we have our noses and fingers in our iphones, smartphones, tablets and whatever else they might be called.

Flying to Washington I picked a book out of my bag. The gentleman seated next to me said: "Huh, some people still do that?" I laughed. Then it made me sad. I don't make judgements in terms of what anyone reads. Read mystery. Read literary fiction. Read poems. Read. I really don't care. Yet, over and over on that trip, people were surprised by my presence with a book made from paper.

Reading, to me, is a vehicle to other lands and ways of thought. It enables someone to learn. It can be escapist or a jumping off point for discussion. It makes us belong to a tribe.

Two nights ago Edwidge Danticat quoted Toni Morrison. She said, "Who knew that he was writing for a black girl in Ohio?

I love to people-watch. I watch them read magazines and Gillian Flynn and eveything else that is sold in an airport-bookstore. The book is dying and it is rising like a phoenix.

Whenever someone looks at me with my paper book and seems astonished I try to smile and let them know that the book is a tool against tired thinking. It is a form of rebellion. I read to inform and enjoy the world in places unknown to me.

The Anatomy of Violence(with apologies to Adrian Raine)

This is one of those posts when I don't know what I'm going to say until I say(type) it. I'm also not certain if there is a coherent point. But it's something that has been bouncing around in my head recently and I need an outlet for that.

Customers frequently ask for suggestions with some clarifications or exceptions--which is helpful and totally fair. Customer x might say, "I can't handle anything where bad things happen to animals." Variations of that can include: children, women, anything other than a zombie. I'm perfectly happy with those limits and abide by them. Another customer might say, "I need something without sadness." Again, perfectly fine. We all need escapes from time to time and there are moments when real life takes its toll. However, there is sadness in life. Not to get too heavy but without darkness there is no light. And there is violence in life. All too often all too much of it. And like any art form, writing must reflect what is real in this world. So, yes, violence.

Recently I've heard two things from customers: "Oh, I liked that book but it was quite violent." And, "It looks good. Is it violent?" Of course that's a hard question to answer. Emotional violence, shooting someone point-blank and the violence of war are only a few of possible situations. Then I started to think about other popular art forms. Television, in particular. The Wire, Breaking Bad, Dexter, CSI, Law and Order and Criminal Minds are just a few shows that come to mind. These are shows that are wildly popular in spite of, or partially due to(?), their explicit violent nature. Very rarely have I heard complaints about what they portray.

So is violence the problem? I'm not sure how to answer that. Is it possible that violence that is shown to us is not as real/bad/horrifying as what we read about and therefore must only imagine? Again, I have no answer. I do think that we've become quite tolerant of images via computer/tv/film. Be it violent or crude language. It's the norm. A professor I had long ago told me that one of the reasons the Vietnam War ended was that the American public was tired of seeing body-bags on the nightly news. We don't see that now, for the most part, with Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria soon to come it seems.

I'm not a proponent of violence without reason or meaning. I'm also not averse to it being there because it needs to be. In art, I mean.

What do you think?

Frank Shay and the oddities

I have a tremendous respect, or odd fascination, with the bookstores of days gone by. I can't remember how I first came upon this image but it has stuck with me for some time. In 1920, Frank Shay opened a little bookstore in New York City. He had customers/authors sign a door in the store as, basically, an art installation.

Everything about this door appeals to me: its vibrant color and the combination of people both famous and forgotten. Thedore Dreiser, John Dos Passos, Sinclair Lewis and Upton Sinclair are just a sample of the more well-known names. Remember the time period as most of the identified signatures are men.

I know lots of bookstores who have authors sign a wall in their back room. We don't have a storage area or closed area to speak of. We have an office(closet-sized) and a small bathroom. All of the receiving of books, for us, happens on the floor of the store right by the register. So, over time, I've had authors sign odds and ends. Promo pieces from publishers or ads we've run. They always seem a bit surprised and pleased to do something quite bizarre. I have a cardboard scarp with Stephen King's name on it. Cheryl Strayed signed a posterboard for her book "Wild." Jonathan Franzen signed a sheet that says, "Mr. Franzen requests no pictures be taken." We have things signed by local luminaries Deborah Keenan, Patricia Hampl, Krista Tippett and Kao Kalia Yang. I have some older things(from my Hungry Mind days) signed by Colson Whitehead, Kurt Vonnegut and Wendell Berry. These are all authors who have been beyond pleasant and a joy to work with/for.

I was reminded of this, most recently, when we hosted a reading for Eireann Lorsung and Katrina Vandenberg--two poets who have published with Milkweed Editions. Eireann lives in Europe now and runs her own small press. At the reading she gifted me a couple beautiful hand-made little books. A friend of mine(and hers) named Ben Weaver brought me a jar of sauerkraut at the event. Yes, sauerkraut.

The point of this, I suppose, is that I feel lucky to work in an industry that is generally supportive of others working in the arts. Sometimes, a name written on a door or wall or a scrap of paper is a concrete reminder of that good.

The window that has turned into a porthole.

The lifespan of a book can be looked at in a lot of different ways. It's life in hardcover(and/or paperback). It's total life in-print. Or eternity, I suppose. Yet there is a window of time when the book needs to sell to be considered a success and that window, friends, has drastically shrunk over time. Back in the good old days--just kidding--publishers were willing or able to build an author over time or a series of books. That does still happen in some cases though it's becoming more and more rare. Emily St. John Mandel is a good example of this. Unbridled Books and Emily have worked together and her sales are building, her name getting known more widely. I'd say it's a beneficial relationship for both. However, like I said, that's no longer the norm.

Publishers get anxious quickly regarding sales numbers and while it's certainly not my place to say what's fair or unfair about how they market and handle their books it does seem, at times, like some publishers take their foot off the gas on working for some books when the sales don't pop right out of the gate. That's partially due to the river of books coming--always new ones that need to be worked on. It's due to the new way in which books are reviewed. Yes, the NYT Sunday Book Review is still big. The Rumpus and Bookslut are major players. Blogs run by individuals, professional reviewers and stores all factor in.

I'm certainly a part of the problem in some small ways. I'll move a book off the front table if it hasn't been looked at or sold much in a few weeks. That has to make authors cringe--a few weeks? they rightly could complain. I'm always harping about how the store has to look fresh, different and new constantly. Part of that is what we display changing often. That means things getting moved that aren't themselves moving. From time to time an author will ask that their book get displayed and if it's been out for 6-12 months the answer is likely no. That's not a hard and fast rule but is a general guideline.

On the other hand, we do display lots of books that aren't just out. An employee might like it, we might sell a lot, it might just have a nice cover. It might even fit into a small space we need to fill. One thing I'm proud of is that we never do paid placement and never, ever, will. Like all stores we also have some sweetheart back-list titles that continue to sell over time. Depending on the store, these titles usually have a local connection or are hand-sold by booksellers or used by book-clubs in the area. Or come from a local publisher. It is highly unusual for an old backlist title to simply sell itself over a long period of time.

Here are some of the titles we continue to sell over time. Well, first, I should say there are some outliers. People like Alice Munro and Marilynne Robinson and Charles Portis continue to roll because they are who they are.

Here are a half-dozen titles from us that have become our little gems. Esi Edugyan's "Half-Blood Blues" is benefited by having a striking cover. That helps. It also has a jazz hook and has moved word-of-mouth for us over time. She has won a slew of Canadian fiction prizes and it's easy to tell why after reading her. Robert Clark's "Mr. White's Confession" is a novel that was re-issued in 2008 after being gone for about ten years. It is fantastic St. Paul 1930's era stuff. Clark once wrote for a local newspaper and people remember the name. "The Hare With Amber Eyes" by Edmund De Waal is a book both Tom and I loved when it first came out. Art history isn't our usual sweet-spot but this has great family history to go with it and is a natural for book groups and fans of strong non-fiction. Another favorite of both Tom and myself is David Benioff's "City of Thieves." This reads like a movie and it will be one at some point. The Siege of Leningrad and humor aren't something most people think about immediately. Yet here it is. I'm a Joe Mitchell fanatic and I will try to sell his "Up in the Old Hotel" to almost anyone who asks for a recommendation. It is one of the very few books I go back to and read again and again. Finally, Kao Kalia Yang's "Latehomecomer" is our overall best-selling book. Published by Coffee House Press it has strong local ties with the Hmong population and its strongest asset is that people who read often buy multiples to give out to friends, family and co-workers.

So while it can be tough for authors to keep their name and titles in the minds of readers given the intense competition it is good to remember that three weeks is not the be-all even today.

This blog begins to breathe again. Or, swimming against the big, bad, river.

Blogs are like gardens. They need care and attention or they can go feral and get out of control. Or die. So I welcome you back here with some big happenings from the book business over the weekend.

Shelf Awareness is the one thing that almost everyone in the book biz peeks at, if not daily, at least with some regularity. Yet I was surprised when I saw an e-mail from them in our inbox on Saturday morning. Here it was. Since then there has been much heated response and debate about what it means.

And it's funny because one of the main reasons I took a break from the blog is that there was this one post I wanted to get done and get it done right. Not with irony or being glib. Well-reasoned and even-handed with the right amounts of anger, resolve and uncertainty. I couldn't pull that together in a way that made sense to me. So I took a break altogether mostly out of frustration with myself. I had promised myself(and a couple regular readers) that I would get back at it in August. And I do have a yellow legal pad with a dozen or so ideas scribbled down and none of them had anything at all to do with Amazon. Yet here we are again. Here is another summary from Melville House.

If I were to take issue with anything that has been said it would be that this is 'an open declaration of war against the industry' part. Because, to me, that declaration was made a very long time ago. To my mind this is a very specific battle within that war. It might be to go after overstock.com in part. Mainly, this is Amazon attempting to land the last blows against B&N. Amazon is going big-game hunting and to rid themselves of Borders and B&N in a relatively short period of time would be a major victory for them. Everyone else? Well, I feel the same now as I did then only knowing that this would be much worse for everyone besides Amazon(of course). Because this is about totally securing the sales of the blockbusters to the price-chasers and half.com'ers and smart-phone zappers. It is about getting loyalty from a kind of consumer that has been hard to pin down. It is about nailing the coffin.

There are things that come to mind like: why don't some indies band together and buy these books at outrageous discounts(at least 20% higher than what we get)to resell? The John Green book, in particular, is one that would make the biggest difference for us. Yet that's a simple and not real solution for me. The larger questions are:why did we let Amazon do this to our industry? Enticed by their sales numbers and all-powerful website that could sell anyone anything at anytime of the day or night. So easy to not be bothered with actual store hours--we are now facing the windows being boarded at the two major chains. Here again is the irony--who are some of the biggest supporters of the online sales tax initiatives? Not just mom and pops--but Target and Best Buy. Nearly everyone is trying to stay afloat.

Now, much like the NY Yankees, we're seeing what happens when too many eggs get placed in one basket. Amazon will likely end up being our Alex Rodriguez--once considered the savior, once so young and pretty only to become a broken and overpaid nightmare. And in A Rod's case: a total cheater.


Adding insult to all of this was the news that President Obama would be speaking this week in Chattanooga at an Amazon fulfillment center.

And am I disappointed in Obama? Yes, of course. I'm not sure what adjective to use but his decision or the decision made by his handlers/decision makers shows so little effort or thought about how our current economy does and does not work. And what is and what is not good for small business that it's shocking. Or appalling. Or disappointing. So there are a few to choose from.

A customer asked me over the weekend what I thought the biggest disservice that Amazon had done to the book industry. I said, at the time, that I wasn't sure. After giving it some thought I would have to say that it is the idea that retail is 'way too expensive.' Standard retail price isn't a dirty thing. We're not marking up handbags or watches to make couture items. It's a price that has been decided. Yes, I understand free-market economics and the idea that people can sell items for what they choose. Yet when one group decides to undercut the industry standard in such blatant and far-reaching ways it makes it quite difficult for anyone else to play the same game.

Read it first--then see it. Or the other way around.

Because, in this case, it doesn't matter. I was lucky catch a documentary called Sign Painters last night at local gem Trylon Microcinema.

The film was done by Faythe Levine and Sam Macon and it features three Minnesota artists. One, Mike Meyer of Mazeppa and two guys from South Minneapolis. Following image is from Meyer's personal collection and is from the 1930's at a theater in Mankato.

Levine and Macon also put together a great book from this project. Princeton Architectural Press packaged it beautifully and, at $24.95, it is well-priced. Levine, in the preface to the book notes that her own love of these signs began in the 1990's when she lived here and frequented the West Bank(where much old and new sign-art exists).


One idea I took from the film is that when a sign-painter tells others what their occupation is they often get a confused look. We all see signs everywhere yet we often don't think about who put them there. The how and why are abstractions to almost everyone. Both the book and film show these artists and their varied skills. It is hand-painting. But it is also goldleaf, lettering and font-work. Many of the younger ones come from the world of graphic design. The older ones got into the trade directly or from tattoo work.

Here is an interview with the two local artists whose work adorns so many local haunts. The huge Fitzgerald mural at the Fitz Theater. That's them. And smaller pieces all over town. You can see more of their work at the bottom of that interview. I love the detail and character each piece brings to a business. It's an art that took a nosedive in the late 80's and 90's but is making in a comeback. And that's a good thing for public art and design.