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Berkeley's literary engine that could

Small Press Distribution celebrates turning 40

Inside Small Press Distribution's amazing warehouse (photo taken by Geoff Huth)

There is a "Poetry Trading Post" just inside the offices of Small Press Distribution in west Berkeley. Drop by, write a poem, and Laura Moriarty, the organization's deputy director, will invite you to select a book from the wall display . . . for free.

Wait a minute! A poem as a medium of commercial value? Bite me until I awaken, let me fall on the thorn and bleed! But know that this is strictly a tantalizing loss-leader. Just beyond the calmly churning front offices where handsome young men like Clay Banes, sales and marketing manager, Brent Cunningham, operations director, and Zachary Tuck, customer service associate, work quietly in cubicles (yes, women work there too, but being straight, I didn‘t notice them as much), there stands a warehouse with perhaps the largest poetry collection ever gathered in one place.

For those who are finding it excruciatingly difficult to locate interesting new poetry titles, SPD is Shangri-La, Mecca, the Holy Grail, and Dante’s Beatrice all rolled into one. People make pilgrimages here from all over the country, indeed the world, and all this time it was right in the Bay Area’s back yard.
  

Geof Huth, a New Yorker originally from Burlingame, recently returned to SPD. “I went in search of poetry, and found it. SPD was filled to the rafters--in this case, literally--with poetry, and poetry of all kinds.” He left with dozens of books, many of them discounted. “Most bookstores,” he says, “hardly carry poetry titles any more, but Berkeley is a poetry-buying mecca.” He sends his good wishes on SPD’s anniversary and thanks them for carrying one of his own titles.
    

On Sunday, April 5th, from noon until 4 p.m., SPD hosted a free and open-to-all 40th anniversary party at their 7th Street office and warehouse, to celebrate their success and to promote their latest goal: getting younger readers hooked on poetry. The “New Lit Generation” readers were featured, including high school students Alex Espinoza and Andrea Lopez, as well as better-known writers Clark Coolidge, Norma Cole, Graham Foust, Tennessee Reed and Erica Lewis. Before the readings, guests could scope out the floor-to-ceiling bookstacks, make discounted purchases, and eat cake.
    

SPD is the nation’s only exclusively literary nonprofit book distributor. Forget your Amazons and questionable Nobles, and put www.spdbooks.org on your toolbar and Delicious bookmark it. Even you, oh single buyer, can purchase directly from The Source. With between 400 and 500 publishers in their stable, 60% of SPD’s titles are books of poems, with the remaining volumes of a more literary--dare I say, intellectual?--bent: fiction, criticism, memoir, and the unclassifiable and rare, such as the two Edmond Jabes books that Zack Tuck was able to quickly find for me. Universities, libraries, teachers and students, independent booksellers and “jobbers” (large book wholesalers such as Blackwells and Baker & Taylor) have learned they can do one-stop-shopping from the twice-yearly SPD catalog and website.
    

While the demise in publishing and independent bookstores have taken some toll on SPD--according to Moriarty, sales have dropped about 15% compared to a 30% drop in the overall book market--she adds cheerily that “fifteen-percent is the new up.“ SPD’s sales are supported in part by universities where literature and poetry continues to be nurtured in English departments and creative writing programs. “Our survival is good, strong,” Moriarty says, because of how the literary community “feeds on itself.” Octavio Paz wrote years ago that poetry has rarely been a mass-supported phenomenon; instead, it remains vibrant and alive due to communities of impassioned and devoted followers who will always seek it out. SPD makes that seeking easier. “Poetry is the genre that the large, commercial publishers most routinely ignore,” says Brent Cunningham, operations manager, “so SPD sees it as the genre most in need of our support and services.”
  

Founded in 1969 by Peter Howard of Serendipity Books and Jack Shoemaker of Sand Dollar, the institution is supported by nine employees, 10 directors, and a number of invaluable volunteers and interns. Jeffrey Lependorf serves as executive director, Moriarty as deputy director. Many of these behind-the-scenes people are poets and writers themselves; Moriarty recently published Ultrtavioleta and has been writing and selling her own books for 20 years.     
    

SPD partners with organizations such as the Council of Literary Magazines and www.abebooks.com to share resources and expand their reach. "New Lit Generation" aims to cultivate readers between the ages of 17 and 25, and a “New Lit Guide” is available to teachers and book-buyers who want titles that appeal to the next generation. The “Poetry Trading Post” visits schools with suitcases full of books to trade for a young poet’s creative work, and some of those poems make it into SPD's twice-yearly catalog.

In addition, to the emphasis on younger readers, SPD is proud of its track-record in making available books by a broad mix of writers from various ethnic and cultural backgrounds. A short perusal of their catalog reveals titles by writers as diverse as Sesshu Foster, Yakov Azriel, artist Chiura Abata, Stephen Kessler, Wafaa Bilal, Leroi Jones, Carol Snow and Stacy Szymaszek.
 

The public is invited to come to Berkeley this coming Sunday to celebrate SPD’s success and lift a glass to its next 40 years. If you can't make it, drop by on some future date, write a mini-masterpiece and turn it in for a free book of poems: there are few places where you could do better and to the extent that you can, it’s because of organizations like Small Press Distribution and their dedicated and friendly staff.

SPD’s mission is to connect readers with writers by providing access to independently published literature; allow esential but underrepresented literary communities to participate fully in the marketplace and in the culture at large through book distribution, information services, and public advocacy programs; and, to nurture an environment in which the literary arts are valued and sustained.
 

Article originally published by Jannie M. Dresser at www.examiner.com, April 5, 2009.