blueprints

A Place for Poetry | 175
The new space features almost a full city block of windows facing the
Hudson River and the Statue of Liberty, attracting more people than ever
to the library and programs. Well-known poets work on their laptops sideby-side
with poets in the early stages of their careers, high schools students
pore through piles of books, youngsters sing poems in a room built just for
them, others listen to poems from our multimedia collection of two thousand
distinct items. Today, the organization hosts more than two hundred
programs a year—readings, forums on poetics, meetings with international
poets—that create a palpable energy of exchange.
The vigor of different kinds of people participating, with distinct points
of entry—children’s room, program auditorium, library, multimedia area,
quiet reading room—physicalizes the notion that there are many ways to
apprehend this art form. This, you will see, is the approach we have modeled
extensively for other kinds of communities. Our programming also
presents different points of entry, from events designed for the widest possible
audiences to advanced forums that are among the most challenging
seminars on poetics outside the university.
Poetry in The Branches grew organically from a special library bookcollecting
program, which helped us to articulate a need within our field.
Since 1992, Poets House has systematically gathered poetry books published
in the United States through the Poets House Showcase, building
one of the great libraries of contemporary American poetry. The Poets
House Showcase is the only comprehensive, annual display of all books of
poetry published in the country—a complete annual snapshot of the art in
print—supported by a catalog of the books, presses, and poets.
During the early years of the Showcase, we realized that there was an
explosion of poetry publishing activity as new technologies decentralized
the means of production. We observed what has now become common
knowledge throughout the field: the vertiginous increase in book production,
the larger role of independent presses in creating poetic diversity, a
more varied range of voices in print, and the decentralization of publishers
throughout the country. We also saw the marked discrepancy between production
and delivery. The books were not reviewed and had little or no
shelf life at bookstores (remember bookstores?), and distribution was profoundly
fragile.
Informed by intensive dialogue with colleagues in the literary, publishing,
and library worlds, we began to turn to local libraries as our best natural
partners to test ways of cultivating a wider audience for poetry and a