The Book and the Press in Recent North American Poetry

• Published in: Chicago review Vol. 66/67; no. 3/4-1; pp. 23 - 367
• Main Author: Maye, Steven
• Format: Magazine Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chicago Chicago Review 01.12.2023
• Subjects: Anthologies; Ashbery, John; Contemporary literature; Editors; Poetry; Poets; Publishing
• ISSN: 0009-3696; 2327-5804

In a moment when staying aware of any new poetry requires some personal initiative, attending to the work of smaller presses allows readers to engage with new poetry in a way that feels meaningful and which promises to be ongoing and open ended. These presses are shaped by both the taste of their editors and their ideas about what a literary community should be, and their publications represent an evolving engagement with, often an intervention within, contemporary poetry. In some ways, presses have taken on some of the functions once performed by literary anthologies. They bring old and new poets to notice, suggest groupings of poets in the manner of movements or schools, republish and aggregate poems and do the same with out-of-print collections (in omnibus editions), and thus participate, however reluctantly, in the work of canonization. However, publishing, when seen as an ongoing and open-ended project, is more amenable to the desire for a more provisional, more revisable, more inclusive canon.