Interview with Christine Deavel, Co-Owner of Open Books and author of Woodnote
Christine Deavel was raised in North Manchester, Indiana, and graduated from Indiana University and the University of Iowa. She is co-owner of Open Books: A Poem Emporium and lives in Seattle, Washington; her first book, Woodnote, is debuting from Bear Star Press in September.
Jeannine Hall Gailey: As someone who has been on both sides of the poetry bookshelf – as both a writer and someone who co-runs an all-poetry bookstore (Open Books in Seattle) – what kind of insight could you share about what puts a book into a reader’s hand? How do we poets connect with poetry buyers? I know one of the reasons I love Open Books is because of the generous insights and opinions of what you guys are currently reading, and you’ve helped me find a lot of new poets to love.
Christine Deavel: Let me put on my bookseller hat for this answer: If a poet’s goal is to get a book placed in bookstores, it helps mightily to understand how the book business works. In fact, before agreeing to let a publisher take on a manuscript, a writer would be well served to know how that book will be announced, advertised, and distributed to the trade. In other words, how would a bookstore learn about and order the book? Will the press be working to get the book reviewed? Will the press send information directly to bookstores? What is the press’s minimum order requirement for the store to receive a trade discount? Will the book be at a wholesaler? How does the press handle sales for author events? The more that poets know about the publishing/bookselling world, the better they can support their work through bookstore sales.
JHG: Christine, your new book, Woodnote, is unusual in its physical shape – and in the shape of the poems themselves, which range from typical lyric shorter poems to long pieces that incorporate paragraphs of prose and fragments – and I like that you sort of went outside of the usual range of what people typically think of as poetry. Could you talk a little bit about how (and why) you pushed the physical boundaries of the book, and of the poem’s shape?
CD: We have a quotation from the Polish poet Anna Swir up on the wall at the bookstore — “Every poem has the right to ask for a new poetics.” That’s what happened for me in the writing of the pieces that are in “Woodnote.” The material taught me how to shape it. The book’s publisher, Beth Spencer, suggested the square book to accommodate the long lines in several of the poems. I’m grateful that she was willing to give the work that space.
JHG: How do you think working in a poetry-only bookstore has influenced you as a writer? Besides getting to be around books all day, you get a perspective on the business-side of poetry that many of us rarely encounter. Do you think this has made you more adventurous in what you write and what you look for in a publisher?
CD: I have been incredibly lucky to have so many poetry readers in my life day in and day out. Not just readers of poetry, but lovers of poetry. And of all sorts of poetry. They have taught me an incalculable amount — introduced me to new writers, helped me articulate my thoughts about poetry, and broadened my understanding of it. What I read always affects what I write. I firmly believe that books talk to books. I’m extremely grateful not just to be surrounded by books but to be visited by ambassadors for those books. I do think I’ve become more open as a reader than I was as, say, a (too young) MFA student. I’m much more willing to venture into poems that I might not necessarily find to my taste or that might bewilder me. I don’t need to be reassured when I read the way I once did. I’d rather find vitality and risk — and that can be found in any aesthetic.
JHG: Okay, since I’ve got you in here as an interviewee, what books are you looking forward to this fall? Have you read anything lately that you got really excited about and would recommend checking out?
CD: I’ll start with a recent read — New Directions just published “Light, Grass, and Letter in April” by the recently deceased Danish poet Inger Christensen. She was a writer of remarkable clarity and depth, innovative yet grounded. Her volume “Alphabet,” which follows the Fibonacci sequence, is also a stunner. Coming up from Wave Books is a new translation of the Russian/Chuvash poet Gennady Aygi — another of my faves; a powerful, haunting voice. Copper Canyon will be bringing out “The Book of Hours,” a new collection by American poet Marianne Boruch, a writer with acute vision — and an unflinching eye. Those are just a few of the goodies on the shelf and coming this fall!
