Free Verse Poetry Book Fair

Very quickly, just to demonstrate that this blog is at the beating heart of poetry, at least sometimes, here is a photo of my haul from last weekend’s poetry book fair.  Having an August birthday is an advantage. 

The two cut-off-corners magazines are from New York based Ugly Duckling Presse, whose table at the fair attracted a lot of interest.  Their formula is 6x6.  The honeycomb book is also from them and contains Jen Bervin’s Nets, in which she trawls Shakespeare’s sonnets.  I first came across some of the results in the Reality Street anthology of sonnets. 

How did I manage to get Kirsten Irving’s book, when Salt didn’t have a table, even though they haven’t stopped producing single-author collections quite yet?  From the author, who was at Sidekick Books with Jon Stone, another Salt poet... just two of the excellent list we are about to lose.  


Six [contemporary] Polish Poets are in a bilingual edition from Arc, one of a series: part of Arc’s excellent work on poetry translation. 

Things seemed to go very well, the hall was crowded, everyone was greeting everyone else, there are reports of publishers selling well, and CBe poetry fair super-hero Charles Boyle (blog link on right) says there were more people there this time.  My publisher HappenStance went home with a nearly empty suitcase.  Standing behind a stall while someone leafs through your own pamphlet (without knowing it’s you) is a strange experience.