plan ahead for publishing

If you’re planning a holiday print run of your current or future poetry collection, the Publishing Team at Village Books in Bellingham urges you to get started now. In an email to publishing and print-on-demand clients this week, they said (in part)

As many of you are already aware, the book industry has not escaped the effects of the pandemic and many of our partners are struggling with supply chain issues. Wood shortages create paper shortages, which drives up book-printing costs, and worker shortages due to COVID-19 leads to delays in packing/shipping/transporting books. We are anticipating delayed printing times of 3-4 weeks for any order of paperback books, and 4-6 weeks for hardcover books.

Here’s what this means for you: if you are needing to order a print run of your books before the holidays, we need to know by October 15th, 2021. This is the suggested cut-off date from our printers to hopefully ensure your books arrive on time. We cannot guarantee that any orders placed after this date will arrive before the holidays.

The concern expressed by Village Books is confirmed by a Bloomberg article that appeared in Tuesday’s Seattle Times, Paper shortage hits American retailers when they need it most.

The bottom line: start planning now and contact your printer to make sure the materials you need will be available.

Thanks to Luther Allen for the heads up.

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Poets House image

more awards

The MacArthur Foundation has just announced the slate of 25 MacArthur Fellows for 2021. The Foundation awards “unrestricted fellowships to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.” Known colloquially as “genius” grants, the awards recognize exceptional vision in a variety of fields. Each fellowship comes with a stipend of $625,000 to the recipient, paid out in equal quarterly installments over five years.

Among this year’s fellows are poets Hanif Abdurraqib, Reginald Dwayne Betts, and Don Mee Choi.

Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week starts today, Sunday, September 26, 2021, and continues through Saturday, October 2.

What are you reading? Perhaps it’s time for a title from one of the American Library Association’s Top 10 Most Challenged Books Lists. ALA doesn’t categorize banned or challenged books by genre, but there are a number of poetry titles on this list of Frequently Challenged Young Adult Books. What will you read next?

Congratulations BTV Bellingham!

Congratulations to BTV Bellingham, which earned three national awards on September 23, 2021, for videos featuring Bellingham Public Library and one award for a Public Service Announcement from the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors.

The Sue C. Boynton Poetry Walk video, featuring Librarian Suzanne Carlson-Prandini and young poet Haley Van Ness, to highlight National Poetry Month in April, won an Award of Distinction in the Library category.

The Library Curbside Service Behind the Scenes video produced in February, also featuring the Van Ness family and the sustained collaboration of Bellingham Public Library staff to keep materials circulating during the COVID-19 pandemic, won two Awards of Honor in the Library and Editing categories.

“The talented staff at BTV and the quality of their content are a true service to Bellingham, keeping our locals informed and raising the profile of our City alongside communities throughout the country,” said Annette Bagley, Head of Community Relations for Bellingham Public Library.

BTV Bellingham is operated by the City of Bellingham to provide information about publicly funded government and educational institutions through high quality video services delivered via the internet and cable television. It can be viewed live 24/7 on the City of Bellingham website, as well as on Comcast Cable TV channels 10 and 321 in greater Bellingham.

Special thanks to BTV and to the Bellingham Public Library for a long tradition of supporting community poetry in Whatcom County!

See also BTV videos of 2021 Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest winners Margaux Barber, Barbara Bloom, Marie Eaton, David M. Laws, Jory Mickelson, Janette Rosebrook, and Genevieve Whelan, with one more, by Lynn Geri, to come!

Poetry, period.

Today and every September 24 is National Punctuation Day. Time to excise those improper apostrophe’s apostrophes and finally figure out the difference between a hyphen and an N-dash and an M-dash and how to use them.

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Infographic from Mental Floss

Monday on Terrain.org

Join Terrain.org for the eighth reading in the online Reading Series on Monday, September 27, 2021, at 5:00pm. Moderated by Terrain.org editorial board member Juan Morales, the reading features award-winning writers Joy Castro, Elizabeth Jacobson, and Allen Braden. The Zoom reading is free, but advance registration is required.

Previous readings from the series are available online.

for your podcast queue

The Ruth Stone House (RSH) was established in 2013 to fulfill the poet’s wish that her physical and literary estate would be used for the furthering of poetry and the creative arts. The organization was created to both cultivate and celebrate the works and legacy of Ruth Stone herself and also maintain her historic property in Goshen, Vermont.

Among its various offerings, RSH has a robust poetry podcast series. Most of the podcasts feature poet/cartoonist Bianca Stone as interviewer or co-performer. Drop in, download, or subscribe at your favorite podcast places.

new poetry titles

Here’s another batch of recommendations for new poetry books to keep you reading through the autumn:

• The Guardian – The best recent poetry – review roundup
• The New York Times – Four New Poetry Books Mine Their Authors’ Pasts for Music and Meaning
• Orion – Eleven Poetry Anthologies Handpicked for Orion Readers
• Pan Macmillan – The best new poetry books of 2021
• Reading Groups for Everyone – Recommended Poetry Books for Reading Groups
• Washington Independent Review of Books – On Poetry: September 2021

Happy reading!

on poetry

“We carry our own wilderness with us.”
Stevie Smith
(September 20, 1902 – March 7, 1971)

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quote from Over the Frontier

awards season

A few days ago, we mentioned the Washington State Book Awards, and that Patricia Smith had been awarded the Ruth Lily Poetry Prize. Smith’s award is dazzling, and we should also note the Academy of American Poets prizes, including the Wallace Stevens Award, which went to Toi Derricotte, the Poetry Foundation’s Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships, the National Book Foundation’s 2021 National Book Awards Longlist for Poetry, and poet Patricia Lockwood, whose debut novel, No One Is Talking About This, has been shortlisted for both the 2021 Booker Prize and the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Congratulations finalists and winners!

Poetry prizes are announced throughout the year. Finalists for the UK’s T.S. Eliot Prize and Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Awards will be announced in mid-October.