SplWhile I’ve been busy moving, I've received a big stack of poetry magazines and newsletters that I’ve been unable to read. The first thing I picked out of the stack was the summer issue of Poetry Reader from the Scottish Poetry Library.

This summer issue talks about poet Robert Wrigley, discusses the demise of the Salt publishers production of single poet editions and how it has affected their members (one SPL member found out from the Internet news before hearing from Salt) but SPL also talks about how pamphlet publishing is “going strong.” The director talks about the sales figures of poetry in the UK and their own lending readership. There’s an interesting short piece on the concertina book form and examples with pictures, including Anne Carson’s book Nox. There’s a piece about Scottish poets partnering with Iraq poets and the process (including the social aspects) of working on translations with them. There’s an interesting profile of poet Jackie Kay and her experiences using both prose and poetry to tackle the same topics:

“…in poetry you can have that moment of lift-off, where the poem almost takes leave of its own senses; it lays down the path and then rises either above or below it. It’s much more difficult to do that in prose without seeming fanciful or too artful.”

I’ve covered this before but I still love SPL materials:

– The fall program schedule that also arrived is very well designed, both pleasant to look at and with a high quality user interface. You can scan the book easily to see all the practicalities: the type of event, the date, time and price. Their language is very inclusive and inviting. I hope to get to one of their events someday if I ever visit Scotland.

– The do interesting and effective outreach…partnering with Botanical Gardens for their Walking with Poets series.

– They’re with it: they incorporate programs that utilize iPads, image uploads, and blogs. They’re not threatened by progress.

– I love that their mission is not so narrowly defined. In America, poetry is too often seen as an elitist endeavor, both by those who hate it and those who love it. SPL “has always been convinced of [poetry’s] therapeutic value” and have taken poetry into nursing homes and residential care centers.

– They articulate their mission in every issue (in a clear bulleted list in the About Us section)