ON COMMUNITY BOOKSHELVES!

So I've written here before, though not recently, on the "e-community bookshelf" I run viz blog for poetry books.  This project was inspired by the real-life community bookshelves at two local coffeehouses--in all three, one can "take a book, leave a book" or trade books. 

Well, I am pleased to report that moi modest poetry distribution effort was noticed by an editor at New HydePark Illustrated in New York.  You can CLICK HERE for the article or read further below as I replicate the article to "file" it into moi blog.  What they couldn't use after asking for it are photos of the non-virtual community bookshelf that inspired Moi -- so I post it here for your viewing pleasure.  Here's a community bookshelf at Calistoga Roastery--note how it's ensconsed among various coffeepots and other coffee-related accouterments:

If you take a close look at the right side of the second shelf of books, you'll see that I seeded two poetry books in there: my Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole and Mark Young's selected poems, PELICAN DREAMING. Here's a close-up of the sign that encourages book trading:

Anyway, things like this generate positive energy -- a good antidote to news of bookstore closings, drop of readership of print books, etc.  Meanwhile, if you wish, you may want to click on MOI COMMUNITY BOOKSHELF if you haven't looked at its offerings lately--we might have a trade to do, too!  And now, here's the New Hyde News Illustrated article in its entirety--thanks to author Rich Forestano:

New Hyde Park residents install community bookshelf at train station


Newspapers and magazines are available at many Long Island Rail Road train stations. But in New Hyde Park, there is something additional for commuters – a bookshelf, thanks to residents Katina Grigoraskos and Carmin Perrone.

Grigoraskos and Perrone installed a New Hyde Park Community Bookshelf at the New Hyde Park train station. The two joined forces with the LIRR and “jazzed the station up a bit,” getting donations from Hillside Public Library.

The idea came to fruition when Perrone was getting rid of her bookshelf and the two thought to put it to good use. Grigoraskos and Perrone reached out to the train station manager Jennifer Uihlein.

Friends, neighbors and the two women donated books. Books can be dropped off anytime during open hours.

“You can take a book and leave a book,” Perrone said. Grigoraskos said the plan is based on the “honor system,” meaning it’s up to the person to return the book. The station refinished the bookshelf and installed it.

Perrone is a speech therapist at Lyons Community School in Brooklyn and Grigoraskos teaches English to Japanese students at Be Fluent NYC in Manhattan.

“I’m a commuter and I was at the [New Hyde Park] station one morning and I saw where the schedules were,” Mayor Robert Lofaro said. “They were moved to the counter and there was a children’s bookcase there and it said ‘New Hyde Park Community Bookshelf.’ I was curious about it.”

The women sent an email to the village asking for help. Lofaro answered.

“I thought it was a great addition to the station,” said Lofaro. “Those are the elements that make a building personal. I was so delighted to hear from [Grigoraskos and Perrone]. I was curious where these [books] came from and I thank them for their efforts. Those types of community elements make a big difference.”

Hillside Library Director Nylah Schneider said the library was all for donating to a cause for literature. The library donated 25 books to the bookshelf.

“They’re doing a wonderful service to the community,” Schneider said. “We were happy to donate these books so more people could take advantage of reading.”

The women found community bookshelves are popular on the West Coast.

Eileen Tabios, Meritage Press publisher in California, takes a different angle on community bookshelves, running an e-bookshelf online, focusing on poetry books.

Tabios frequents two coffee shops in St. Helena and Calistoga, CA. Two community bookshelves grace their counters in Napa Valley.

"They allocate a part of their space,” she said. “There seems to be a lot of turnover. It’s successful. The e-bookshelf that I do focuses on poetry, which is a smaller niche. Quite often what I do, I don’t mind sharing. I see one or two copies of books I publish at the coffee shop and the next thing I know, they’re gone.”

The Calistoga Roastery sports a full bookshelf, with multiple books for the taking. Tabios thinks community bookshelves are a quick way to come across books you may not read. The convenience of it is what draws people to them.

“You’re not going out of your way to buy books. You’re at a coffee shop and hey, it happens to be there. It’s free and it helps in today’s economy. I do it online. I’ll get emails from people asking ‘hey, do you have a copy of this.’”

The ultimate end game of this initiative for Grigoraskos and Perrone is to have bookshelves in all LIRR train stations.

“We would love to see [the bookshelves] in all stations if possible,” Perrone said. “To get more books…get more involved,” said Grigoraskos.

I am happy to represent the West Coast!   I'm just such a librarian at heart ....    

FOR TRADING POETRY BOOKS!

The following list is an update of my list of recently BOUGHT POETRY books.  It includes some books I snapped up at a local library's sale--I had some of those books already but acquiring copies also allowed me to update my Community Bookshelf.  Through this Community Bookshelf, I can trade poetry books--check it out HERE if you have spare poetry books!

BOUGH BREAKS by Tamiko Beyer
TRISM by Rebecca Loudon
COLEMAN HAWKINS ORNETTE COLEMAN by Norma Cole
EATING IN THE UNDERWORLD by Rachel Zucker
5 SHADES OF GRAY by Eileen R. Tabios

Bought For Cents on the Dollar at A Library Sale:
HALF LIVES by Erica Jong
BIRTHDAY LETTERS by Ted Hughes
THE HEART OF A WOMAN by Maya Angelous
LIFE WORK by Donald Hall
BORDERLANDS/ LA FRONTERA by Gloria Anzaldua
LIKE THE PIECES OF DRIFTWOOD by Jon Francis
DARK CARD by Rebecca Foust
SEASONS AT EAGLE POND by Donald Hall
EZRA POUND AND HIS WORLD by Peter Ackroyd

TRADE POETRY?

I added some titles to MOI COMMUNITY BOOKSHELF where folks can trade me poetry books. Check it out!

RESURRECTING THOSE POETRY BOOKS!

I don't know why public libraries deaccession poetry books. It's not like said libraries are for-profit institutions so why treat poetry the same way as out-of-date computer books or unpopular light fiction? Librarians--ye inherently cultural activists!--just make those books available! Anyway, here's another poetry book I plucked from a library's "freebie" section -- they didn't even bother to put it on shelves where they stock books for modest fundraising sales (I guess they, too, know it's difficult to sell poetry ... which is not a reason to deaccession them!)



Yep, Billy Collins didn't fare well at this library. But that's okay, I've placed it on my Community Book Shelf where it can have a second life by being yours for trade! So much for Mr. Poetry Bestseller...!

***

Great Recession poetry economics is even worse than the usual moronic oxymoron of poetry economics. For example, for the last fiscal year, I (as a poetry publisher) apparently generated net sales through SPD of $193.37. After covering my annual SPD distributor fee of $160, I net, yep, $33.37. Well, at least I ain’t in the red…

Nor do I want poetry publishers to be in the red! So I did my modest bit with this latest update to my BOUGHT POETRY List:

THE CURVED PLANKS: POEMS, A BILINGUAL EDITION by Yves Bonnefoy, Trans. by Hoyt Rogers

THE ERRANCY by Jorie Graham

THE BOOK OF MIRRORS by Frieda Hughes

STONEPICKER AND THE BOOK OF MIRRORS: POEMS by Frieda Hughes

PRACTICAL WATER by Brenda Hillman

Nevuh mind Black Friday. Give a poetry book or a book by a poet for the Holidays! For instance... As for Moi, I'm personally eye-ing THIS ONE as a Xmas present to moiself...! Because I know My Man! will not disappoint....! Do consider that a recommendation, too!


'

TAKE A BOOK, GIVE A BOOK!

Traded a couple more books yesterday, which means 40 books so far have traded through MOI COMMUNITY BOOKSHELF! That's pretty good since the subject at hand is poetry books -- so difficult to move that a sales figure of, say, 25 books is enough to get you onto certain poetry bestseller lists! (Sorry, just amusing moiself here...) Anyway, why dontcha click on the link and see if we can ... trade!

THE MOST ACCURATE PORTRAYAL OF MOI HAS SURFACED--SHE IS HUMP-BACKED BY HUNCHES!--

IN the latest review of SILK EGG! Here's an excerpt, with said "portrayal of moi," by Joey Madia in New Mystics Review:

...Jorge Luis Borges’s “Library of Babel” (which also inspired Umberto Ecco’s Name of the Rose), a geometric wonder of a library wherein is contained all the possible combinations of words for every book ever written, or yet to be. Picturing this wondrous place one cannot help but to also imagine the weathered librarians, hunch-backed monks, rebellious demons, be-spectacled book collectors, and half-mad writers searching for new inspirations in its leaf-laden passages…

It is here, in this chamber, this mansion of the mind, that one best sits while reading SILK EGG, peering through the windows of hotels and apartments, restaurants and lighthouses, vineyards and wine cellars in places ‘round the world, with their self-isolated population of affluent and emotionally detached men and women reaching across chasms of hurt and apathy to try and connect with one another. Their places of cold confrontation and passive habitation are dressed in silk and pewter, rose and diamond, jade and moss, snakeskin and ruby, linen and leather, tulip and truffle, and opium and orchid.

They try and fail, and try again, their short-armed gestures and hollow words falling between the spaces, back into the library, where they reconstitute in new forms and better possibilities as we grab and grasp and turn them to our use.

Yes dears -- Moi is really just a weathered librarian, hunch-backed nun, rebellious demon (Hi Fallen Angels playing poker in the upper left-corner of each room in which I step!), bespectacled book-collector and half-mad writer! I wonder if "hunch-back" might have been a typo for "humpback" but I actually like the concept of being bowed by hunches! (Quasimodo--I never considered you ugly!)

And if you're intrigued by SILK EGG's review, hey it's also available for TRADE HERE!

NOT BASEBALL STATS, BUT BETTER THAN NOTHING!

I'm a poetry publisher. So it pains me to admit that I've moved more books in the first two days of my poetry book trading project than I often sell in a month!

I'm not really in pain -- I reconciled long ago with the limited commercial possibilities of poetry book sales. But I still want a wider distribution for poems! So check HERE for the latest list of books available for trade.

And because, like that character in Richard Brautigan's The Hawkline Monster (who'd partly inspired the hay(na)ku!), I like to count, I'm now keeping tab of successful poetry trades HERE. Even if the momentum slows down, I want to relish these stats. And, hey, why don't you help keep the count going? Trade me poetry books!

AN ACTIVE COMMUNITY BOOKSHELF!

In the first day that I called out for poetry book trades viz MOI COMMUNITY BOOKSHELF, 18 books moved. That's 18 poetry books that got traded into a space of being read anew. Not bad for 24 hours!

And I've also added more books to the list of available poetry books ready to be traded. Check out the Gift Economy HERE!

WANNA TRADE POETRY BOOKS?

I was a laughingstock again at the bank. Yesterday, I went in there to deposit some, ahem, revenues for Meritage Press. Two checks, totalling $20. Yay!

Okay, I know it ain't high finance. But did that bank teller really have to bust out giggling? (It's a small town -- they know Moi.)

Anyway, it's always a challenge to actually sell poetry books. Much of these copies (outside of the textbook-enforced assigned market) circulate in other ways, like through poetry trades. To wit, I sent this missive out recently to a couple of Listserves; I am happy to also offer it to you, moi 9 billion peeps:

Dear All,

In my house recently, books seemed to have become like an alien invasion, starting to cover every inch of the house. So I did some pre-Spring Cleaning and moved a ton of books from floor to bookshelves. In doing so, I came across multiple copies of the same title as my past messiness must have made me forgot what books I'd already owned or where I'd put them (e.g., it seems like I bought Van Gogh's Letters a dozen times...).

For poetry books, I decided to offer my spare copies for trade for other poetry books. (I also thought the poets who wrote these books might favor me trying to further circulate my spare copies for possibly more readers.) I list those poetry books at my "Community Bookshelf" here at http://moicommunitybookshelf.blogspot.com/ (under the "why not?" category, I tossed in some books I publish viz Meritage Press as well as some of my own). If you'd like to trade a poetry book (including your own) for any of those books, contact me and we'll set it up.

If you have a spare copy of a poetry book to trade, check my list of owned poetry books first to see if I already have it. My Poetry Library is listed here at http://galateapoetrylibrary.blogspot.com/

best,
Eileen
P.s., in most cases I only have one spare copy -- so first come, first served.

I suggest reading poems daily, Peeps. They're better than apples!