A few years ago I had a subscription to one of the larger poetry presses here in Canada. They're still probably considered a small press, compared to big publishers like PRH, McClelland and Stewart, etc, but are one of the main players and tastemakers. And it was good, it helped them to survive, but at the end of the year, having read all the books, I just felt a bit underwhelmed.
The books were beautiful; they were polished; they were important, being focused on themes I know I'm supposed to find important; and I was wondering where all the passion and fire had gone. Was it all edited out? Was it there in the first place?
So then I started getting subscriptions to some much-smaller-presses, one-person operations, the sort of presses put out a wild range of work, stapled or ring-bound or sewn with waxed thread, and I was in love. I didn't always like what I was reading, but I could see where it was going. It may not have been for me, but it was all in.
Last year I added another small press subscription, The Blasted Tree out of Calgary. And, same thing: I don't always love what I'm reading, but I'm always very impressed. I think it's important to read widely, even if one's own tastes skew a particular way.
The Blasted Tree sends work in batches, two per year. I got my first batch yesterday: there was handmade ASCII art of a mountain scene, a long poem on hospitalization and OCD, a poetic 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover-type poem riffing off the names of Canadian poets, all kinds of stuff. And I loved it, the package, even if an individual piece might not be my thing.
Years ago I wanted some measure of fame, of accolades, of celebratory success. But don't we all when we're young, when we're fiery and driven and so sure of voice? I was convinced my work was good, it was just a matter of editors seeing it. And then you see the people who take off spectacularly early, whose every work is lauded, and you realize that every time it's them, it isn't you. As Carmine Starnino puts it in his excellent essay, "What Might Have Been":
It reminds us that the episodes that shape a period are both simple and unfathomable. Reputations happen, or don’t. One oeuvre is celebrated, not another. Plaudits and prizes suggest a career is rocketing away, only for it to wind up skidding to a stop.
And as the years have passed, as I've entered into middle age, it's become clear that the rockstar dream is never going to be realized, in any genre, in any capacity. Not for me. But there are other, more interesting paths through the literary community. As you get older, you realize the awards aren't the point, though maybe that's, as they say, cope. And I think the small press, the very small press, is where I've made my home. And it's a good house. The walls are solid. There are so many chapbooks. There's so much to read.