Graywolf Press has launched a new event series that aims to take poets published by the press on the road to do three readings in three cities in three days.
The inaugural tour took place February 5-7, and featured stops at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco; Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Mass.; and McNally Jackson in New York City. Poets D.A. Powell (Useless Landscape), Nick Flynn (The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands), Mary Szybist (Incarnadine) and Dobby Gibson (It Becomes You) participated. Gibson and Szybist went to all three events; Flynn went to two; and Powell went to the third.
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At Harvard Book Store: bookseller Tara Metal, with poets Dobby Gibson, Nick Flynn, Mary Szybist and David Rivard |
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"It's something we're embarking on both to celebrate the legacy of great poetry that Graywolf is known for, and in an effort to draw bigger crowds out for poetry events around the country," explained Graywolf marketing and publicity associate Marisa Atkinson. "The response we've already seen has been fantastic, and we hope this is the beginning of what will become a longstanding tradition here at Graywolf."
Participating booksellers were enthusiastic about the readings. "There was excellent attendance," Peter Maravelis, events coordinator at City Lights, said. The crowd was standing room only, with a line of people going downstairs, and sales were robust.
In all, Maravelis estimated that 80-100 people attended, which he called "really unheard of. Twenty years ago, maybe 10 or 20 people would have showed up. I think what we're seeing is a renaissance in the interest of poetry."
Rachel Betz Cass, of Harvard Book Store, reported similar results: "There were a lot of people in attendance who had never gone to one of our events or had no idea that we even did events. It brought in a lot of new people, so clearly there are a lot of people out there interested in going to poetry events."
In the spring, Graywolf plans to bring Stephen Burt (Belmont), Sophie Cabot Black (The Exchange) and Brian Russell (The Year of What Now) to bookstores in New York City, Chicago and the Twin Cities. Stops in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., are already planned for the fall tour, which will feature Harryette Mullen (Urban Tumbleweed), Thomas Sayers Ellis (Skin, Inc.), Hailey Leithauser (Swoop) and Dexter Booth (Scratching the Ghost). --Alex Mutter