I found the conclusion of the story on the Grolier store not only uplifting because someone stepped in to help keep the doors open, but because the new owner clearly sees the value of a broad and diverse perspective:
“If there’s any man who knows anything about international poetry—and not just the kind that’s the flavor of the year—it’s Professor Menkiti.� The potential, she says, is huge; if Menkiti successfully harnesses his knowledge of world poetry, he could create “a revolution in taste.�
That’s some tall praise, especially from the former owner Louisa Solano who grumbles a bit about the late 1970s and how it was a time when poetry went through a “sea of change”. Wasn’t that true of America and its shift in popular culture as a whole?
“It made it quite clear that a poet has to have really good connections to get somewhere. It started getting kind of ugly, as people’s ambitions turned more toward—ambition.�
This sounds strangely familiar, like something Thomas Frank has hinted towards in his book What’s the Matter with Kansas? I mean for a minute there I was sure Solano was talking about the general conservative shift in the US, rather than something unique to poetry, and in fact she probably was. Another example of this kind of effect was in European poetry compared with American poetry in the late 1930s as I have mentioned before. It seems to me that true poets have traditionally been a canary-like indicator of the culture and times around them.
So, I suspect that when Menkiti seeks poets to fill his shelves he will be thinking in far more broad and diverse strokes of life for a much larger potential yet less-affluent audience than what the average American bookstore chain executive might have in mind. That should help him avoid trying to appease or succumb to what Solano found so ugly — the long-term effects of US popular conservatism starting in the late 1970s, or ambition for ambition’s sake. His mission seems nicely grounded.
“I have a strong sense of hope and belief that poetry can help our world,” he said. “The sense of a world together has formed a very important part of my own poetry, and I’m hoping the Grolier can organize programs to keep that spirit alive.”
[…]
It seems that poetry requires direct human contact to succeed. “In my view,” said [executive director of Poets House] Briccetti, “live readings and gatherings have become the most important means of selling poetry. There is no real marketing. You don’t see ads for poetry books.”
That’s one of the reasons Menkiti took the plunge. He is brimming with ideas for readings and events and hopes to rebuild and broaden the Grolier’s inventory, including poets from around the world in English translation, and possibly hold bilingual poetry readings.
Reminds me of the ongoing efforts of the Poetry Translation Centre at SOAS and the Poetry International Web. It shouldn’t be revolutionary to think about poetry in a global sense…
