Distribution : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation

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I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the role of the library in your life as a 21st century reader and/or writer. I taught a summer class this past June, and when I needed to mark papers or work on my notes, I often retreated from the summer sun and my always-on computer screen to the basement of Gorgas Library here on the University of Alabama campus. The basement of Gorgas approaches my Platonic ideal of librarity (or librariousness, if you prefer): cool silence, greenish tile floors, flickery yellow fluorescent lights, indestructible but much-graffiti’d wooden and green metal furniture, creaky and ticking pipes crisscrossing the low ceiling, and of course aisle upon aisle of books, many of which (e.g., a 1932 history of Catholicism in Montana) may never be read again, but all of which stand ready, patient, in case you want them. I love it down there. When my mind wandered from my students’ papers, I got to thinking about how my relationship to libraries has changed over time. I wonder how yours has, too.

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07.26.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (37)

Camille Dungy

Poetry is making things happen! Installment #1 (Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project)

We’re nearly a week into National Poetry Month. Poems, poems, everywhere. Also economic chaos, heightened criminal activity, catastrophic climate change…and all the other worrying realities of our time. This world is full of real-time hard times. How can poetry make it better?

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04.07.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (6)

Linh Dinh

Small and Smallest

Flying from San Francisco to London over the weekend, I found myself sitting next to a woman whose accent sounded more British than American, so I assumed she was a Brit going home, but no, Randi Cathinka Neverdal was a Norwegian doing her doctorate thesis on small press literary publishing in the U.S. What serendipity! “I’m a poet,” I admitted to Cathinka without shame. We talked.

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03.23.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (5)

Ange Mlinko

Poetry Bookshop

Hello Harriet readers! Just a quick alumni news flash. In this time of dying bookstores, here’s a bright spot: a poetry bookshop in Beacon, NY called Hermitage. It opened in December, “focusing primarily on small press publishing in American poetry between the 1950’s to 1970’s.” If you’re looking for The Green Lake Is Awake or The Hotel Wentley Poems or a full run of Locus Solus, you will want to come here. It is only one room, adjacent to an art gallery whose current exhibition features typographical visual art. The proprietors, Jon Beacham and Christian Toscano, have a letterpress upstairs and ambitions for publications, readings, and more art. In their statement, found on their website, they explain, “Hermitage resulted from the frustration of the current model of how much of art and culture is presented by galleries, institutions, and other organizations.” In the wake of various discussions on Harriet past and present—discussions touching on AWP and the marketing of poetry—it is worth pointing out that an older, DIY model of distribution still exists. It requires only passionate conviction and community. Oh, and low rent!