The House of Words (no. 10): Doing what you want to do, 2

Why is The Throne of Psyche today's illustration? No good reason except that books shipped from the mill on the 25th and so pub date approaches. And that I am just as cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof antsy as any other writer with a new book of poetry, worried whether her paper progeny will ever find good homes and readers. Also, I suppose that we can class this publication as one of those alternative markets mentioned below: the university press. There. Reasons. Good enough for me. You?

10. Doing what you want to do, continued

It is unclear to most readers and a great many writers that major publishing houses intend to choose the books that will do well. The house attempts to consult the cloudy crystal ball of the times and point a finger at the books that will sell in good numbers. It then places good money on that bet. They back a very few fiction and nonfiction horses and treat them quite well. The first time I understood this way of doing business was when I learned that an upcoming lead book on a certain list was being pushed by three full-time, full-size bodies called marketers--and it was three months before “pub date.“ Meanwhile, I was adding my bit of luster to the same list and had the hangnail of a body but much closer to pub date, along with some other writers who each had a tidbit of flesh and a jot of attention.

You know that hackneyed expression, “the scales dropped from her eyes?” Think of the author, blinded with layers and layers of eye-scales. Things happen. Scales drop. At last she stands naked-eyed. C’est moi.

Perhaps I should add, in case you've missed this bit of slang, that pub date is nothing like a ploughman’s lunch with a beer but the date scheduled for a book’s launch. At a major house, a launch is either a big whopping party where they break champagne over the bow of your ocean-going boat, or it is something else. At the least, it is when your editor (or her assistant because she has already departed for Somewhere Else) taps your book with her pinkie finger; it tumbles into the well, sending up a trail of bubbles as it sinks and you jump up and down, trying to alert the world. Probably that's not the least. The least is when the publishing houses folds or collapses and re-structures just before your special pub date.

Without a push, you will likely have the sort of sales numbers that mean your publisher will want somebody with better sales numbers next time--or somebody with no sales record for bookstores to track. Without a push, you may find it difficult to move to an equally large and equally prestigious house. Without a push, you might as well be at a smaller house that is willing to give lots of attention and care. Without a push, you might find that you begin to think about alternatives. (We’ll get to some of those later.)

None of this did I grasp early on.

Continued

Long Grass Books no. 5, Corey Mesler

Some Identity Problems


Corey Mesler is a penpal of mine—met in the e-aether some time after he reviewed a book of mine for the Memphis Commercial Appeal—and so I want to pay some notice to the fact that he has published that most-ignored thing, a book of poems. FootHills Publishing has stitched up Some Identity Problems as an attractive book, generous in its profusion of poems.

You will never meet this amusing, charming poet and novelist on tour because he is agoraphobic and stays home in Memphis, but you can meet the joy, whimsy, love, anxiety, and contradiction in his poems. Many of these poems are modest in scale but have reach. As a whole they are kaleidoscopic—swerving from low to high in diction, playful, belated in feeling or elated, revealing a persona that struggles to find a center, meaning, worldview. He frolics in the realm of the absurd, then evinces a heart of ripped-open sincerity. He bumps from sacred to profane, leaping from monkey to man to deity. His favorite tropes involve repetition and variations on it, startling metaphor, and the yoking of opposites—a Barcalounger linked to mythic depths.

If you wish to buy a copy, the ideal place to buy is from the bookstore that Corey and his wife Cheryl run in Memphis—Burke’s Book Store, the oldest bookstore in Memphis, founded in 1875. That’s what I’m doing because I can support the book of poetry and bookstore at once. Mine is beautifully signed, so be sure and ask for an inscription!

Addendum:
If you'd like to ask Corey a question here, feel free!
I'll roust him for an answer.

CHTHONIC LIBRARY

The red book we keep high on a shelf
where children can’t reach.
The blue book is for those who won’t
read anything else. The black
book is where I write everything down,
the names of the children,
the reasons we keep the books, and the
way out, if that becomes necessary.

AN ORRERY FOR CHLOE

I will paint the paper sky
with pinpoints of light,
put a smile on the
waif-like moon.
I will walk with you onto
the sunbeams
that color our porch like
a prism exploding.
And, in the end, if the
wayward universe
will not bend to our every
wish, I will filibuster
god to give you all the
comforts of home,
on this rickety planet, even
as she speeds through
space on a collision course
with eternal profusion.

WHAT MOVES IS PAST

“A lonely moon is mirrored in the cold pool.
Down in the pool there is not really a moon…”
Hanshan

By remote water I have sat
thinking of this and that
and speaking names into
the water, as if there I would
receive back echo. Those
who no longer are near,
those who no longer care,
all those who took me into
themselves and then moved on,
I talk to the river about them.
The river itself is never still,
but it answers something in me
which is deep and almost beyond
recollection. It answers that those
names are now made of silence.

Yet another addition, October 30th: I took a peek at Corey's publisher, and feel that I have been remiss in neglecting to mention how interesting and industrious they appear. Poet and publisher Michael Czarnecki writes of the small company that "FootHills Publishing was formed in 1986 for the purpose of getting into print the words of poets who found it hard to get their work out to the public other than at readings or in the occasional magazine. The first few books were published in conjunction with Great Elm Press, operated by Walt Franklin. Since then, FootHills Publishing has released more than 250 chapbooks or books." The company has all the virtues and determination of a cottage industry: "I do the editorial work - Carolyn handles the book production and shipping and our two boys, Grayson (16) and Chapin (12), help with production. Grayson also assists with some design work. All of our books are now hand-stitched and we have received many compliments on the quality of the work, both in content and production." The picture of Corey's book below doesn't show the stitching, but it's quite evident and attractive when one sees a copy, as is the good quality of the materials. I looked them up and see that they are just barely west of the finger lakes, and probably got as much snow as we did yesterday...