Hello all. First
let me say it's an honor to be here before you, doing my part to add to
the text-horde, helping to create a diversion so someone else can
commit the real crime. Or perhaps to fight the real crime. Anyway,
I'm pleased to be here, blogging for the next week.
I promised
David Lehman I'd write about jazz, and I will, a bit later. But I
thought I'd begin with some thoughts on a bit of po-biz news that
intersects with another part of my professional life. I make a part of
my living as a technology reporter for Publishers Weekly, for
whom I've written many stories about the burgeoning E-book business
over the past couple of years. It's recently come to my attention that
the poetry and short fiction publisher BOA Editions, Ltd., has just
made three of its book available for the Amazon Kindle e-reader device,
which seems to be to be a good opportunity to think about the potential
for e-books and the poetry scene.
(First, however, I should
disclose that BOA is indeed publishing my next book in May, though no
one at BOA told me that they had been working on producing Kindle
editions of BOA books, and I found out when I happened to scan the BOAfacebook
page (and we'll leave the intersection of poetry and social networking
for another day). BOA is the first mostly-poetry press I know of to do
Kindle books (though I know, too, thatGraywolf has begun to publish at least its fiction in electronic form), so BOA seems like a good place to start).
As you'll see here
at the top of BOA's website, three books–collections of prose poems by
Russell Edson and Nin Andrews, as well as a book of stories by Martha
Ronk–are now available for the Kindle. And for only $7. Now I know
that many a book person probably cringes at the thought of their
precious books being reduced to ones and zeros, especially precious
poetry books, which are more like talismans to ward off ignorance and
existential loneliness than bound stacks of papers. I'm the same way,
believe me. I LOVE my books. One of my favorite things is to fall
asleep with a book on my chest–sometimes, I'm not even reading the
damn thing: I just put the closed book on my chest and close my eyes.
Books are warm and friendly; electronic files are abstract and
confusing (though I would think a Kindle or Sony reader is at least
slightly warm, electronic as it is).
But then, the Internet
has made this, I'd think, the most literate moment in history. We
spend more of our time than ever reading various kinds of texts,
researching our interests, commenting. I can't help but think that's a
very good thing. Sure, we're less tempted to actually speak to other
people, but unless you're very weird, you still do (if you are weird,
you probably found a way of not speaking to people well before the
Internet came along to help). One the whole, I think Google and
others' efforts to put books online is absolutely necessary–we need to
have the sum-total as it were of our knowledge archived and made
accessible to anyone who wants it.
I don't know if e-reader
devices are here to stay. My guess is that in a few years, we'll have
computers with screens as flexible as fruit roll-ups that we can fold
out of our pockets and do all the reading and writing we want. But
they're here now, and I'm glad to see some poetry, some new poetry,
popping up on them. Let's face it–poetry don't make much money, it
don't sell in huge quantities, and it takes up space in distributors'
warehouses while it isn't selling, making those distributors less
amenable to carrying more poetry in the future. E-books of poetry can
solve these problems. Plus, once poetry goes out of print, the demand
is often too small to warrant another printing. I, for instance, would
love it if there were e-books, say, of the entire now-defunct U of
Georgia contemporary poetry series. Or of all the past Yale winners
books. Why, for instance, can't I get my hands on a copy of Bridget
Pegeen Kelly's Yale winning debut. If I could, as an e-books, you can
bet I'd shell out $7 for it.
That said, I think the best use
for standalone e-books readers like the Kindle is for periodicals.
What I would LOVE is to see literary magazines go electric. I would
love to read them on screen, rather than read them once and then watch
them pile up all over the house. And chapbooks could have a nice life
as digital editions too–their distribution is often too small and
local.
Now, I'm not advocating that we scrap paper poetry
books by any means, I only wish I saw more poetry publishers thinking
about the potential of e-books for our little poetry world. I think a
lot could be accomplished.
–
Now, I'll say more about
jazz later in the week, but for today I'll offer some recommended
listening. I've been a bit obsessed with Louis Armstrong lately,
having just finished reading a forthcoming biography of him called POPS
by TerryTeachout , which I'm reviewing. It's hard, especially for the
youngsters among us, to put Armstrong in perspective. He was a
superstar at a time before superstars, and a musical innovator who can
now sound a bit quaint and un -edgy. But, if one can keep one's ears
open, the music is pretty awesome. So, may I submit for your approval this album: LOUIS ARMSTRONG PLAYS W.C. HANDY. This is probably the
trumpeter's best mid-late career record, his versions of songs by one
of the fathers of the blues, recorded with his All-Stars, the small
group he played with for about the last third of his career. The
songs–boisterous instrumentals, with lovely sung passages by Armstrong
and his group's female vocalist whose name I can't now conjure–are
surprisingly hard-hitting and deep if ultimately joyful. I downloaded
my copy digitally–MP3s strike me as by far the best way to distribute
music, for what it's worth. It's good listening for what seems like
the first real day of fall. Talk to you tomorrow.