Here is the May edition of The Poetry Shelf, our suggested poetry assortment, compiled by Michelle Halket of Central Avenue Publishing.
Happy May! I don't know about you, but I love this month--it's generally fantastic weather, the sky is extra blue and the flowers are extra pretty. This time, there are quite a few new titles on the bestseller list, including:
Galahad and the Grail by Malcolm Guite
Poetry Says It Better by Ellen Burstyn
Conjuring the Hurricane by Sarah Hanson
How to Eat a Poem by American Poetry and Literature Project
Darby, Love... by Darby Hudson
You know, like with any endeavor in market research, we can find holes in our methodology, and I just came across one this week--purely for selfish reasons. I was quite looking forward to being able to brag about one of our recently released titles, which last week debuted at #4 on the BookScan bestseller list and made the Top 40 Independent Press List. But this week, it's nowhere to be found, so I can't put it on this list.
You see, I undertake this project monthly, but I use the most recent weekly bestseller lists from BookScan and the Independent Press Top 40. So, it's possible that a book that did very well in one or more of the three weeks that I didn't look at won't be suggested to you in this e-mail. But perhaps it continues to have strong sales, and do I honestly think it's a great addition to a store's poetry shelf? Yep. But is it on this list? Nope. And how many books other than mine have I missed that flashed massive sales to get on those lists? And how many other books have I missed that sell strongly every week, but don't quite make that bottom threshold. Too many to tell.
But I will still keep going with this monthly frequency for two reasons. The first is that I don't think that a poetry assortment needs refreshing more than once a month. The second is that while I keep an eye on the lists weekly, for me to try to average out four weeks of data is a lot more work for me (and likely more error prone). The third and most important is that if a book is a bit of a flash in the pan (and I'm not trying to call my book that 😝), then perhaps it doesn't deserve to be on this list--which is designed to be a best-of-the-best kind of project for stores that don't have time or resources to constantly curate a poetry section.
For our feature month in June, I'm suggesting some iconic titles by some iconic queer poets, as well as some new books gleaned from the finalist lists of the Lambda Literary Awards.
As always, everything I put on these lists are just suggestions meant to spark ideas of your own. Pick and choose as best fits your store!