So, the poetry world sometimes feel wide as an ocean. All the writers, all vying for the same cheese, my more cynical friends say. But sometimes, people as far away as Syracuse get contact you, ask you some questions your press, and viola, some very nice publicity.

http://thedowntownwriterscenter.blogspot.com

And don’t just read the Slash Pine write-up. Read as much as you can. They’ve really got some terrific arts programming at the YMCA in Syracuse. Poetry comes in many places.

Why did Slash Pine boom so quickly? Why did my co-founder’s ideas about a press engage me?

Well, I defer to the excellent Katy Henriksen of Cannibal in a piece that appeared in the New Yinzerlast year. I think it gets to the heart of what I’m valuing these days in poetry. She and her husband Matt run a tight ship that I hope we can emulate in the years to come.

On Facebook, Patty Paine of diode posted this interesting and thought-provoking piece about the rise and burn of so many small presses. The general point–using the Boulder Book Arts Festival as framework–is how to survive the sophomore slump, once the allure, the glitter, and initial energy burns off? How to build something to last?

Travis Nichols goes on to mention the exception to the burn-out rule: Ugly Duckling Presse, Ahsahta Press, Octopus, Rain Taxi, and Volt. And he has an interesting proposition: that all these presses are open to anything, that they allow themselves to be surprised. Most of these presses are what many writers would label “experimental”, and even Nichols himself admits to the sometimes fragmenting or impenetrable nature of some of the work these presses put out–Victorian parlor poems or poems about cats and gardens these are not. However, Nichols says he loves to be among the chaos, loves that poems which aren’t easy but that are out there in the world nonetheless–that they need to be out there. 

I’ve been thinking recently what makes Slash Pine unique–what makes it something that could last not two years or five years, but longer. And I think we have a few things going our way.

• First, we’re housed in a university, and while that may oppose some of the DIY elements of chap presses we love, it also gives us a base of funding to work with.
• Second, we deliberately read blind and our editorial staff comes from all walks of life and have vastly differing aesthetics. When I think back to our first editorial meeting of finalist manuscripts, we had work on the final table that was ranged from the accessible to the ostensibly impenetrable. But all the work–somehow–seemed to take some kind of risk, and the two books we chose, they risked something: not only in content, but in form. And we were thrilled with that surprise.
• We have an internship of undergrads, and we are lucky–blessed even–that there is framework for this. It’s not a top-down model but a co-operative model, where our interns pitch ideas about reading events, book design, and web presence. In short, we’re hanging around a bunch of 20 year olds with energy to burn, and that’s always quite contagious.
• Finally, I’d say that everyone involved in the press is looking outwards–how can we build community with other writes and non-writers alike? How do we make ourselves locally relevant? I don’t have answers to those questions yet–because we’re only a year old and finding our way in the world. But we take pleasure in that. And pleasure, I think, is the key…and one has to allow pleasure to come in all its faces and forms, as opposed to closing oneself down when a strange-looking being (book, event proposal, etc.) walks into the room.