The glass of local poetry books--something that can be seen as either half-full or half-empty.

Earlier today (March 24th), I picked up copies of my latest chapbook NEVER MET BUKOWSKI from PIP Printing (have done business with them since 2000) at their Sun Valley, CA location.

I'm still a holdout from the period where poets self-published their own chapbooks (either through the former Kinkos or places like PIP) and sold them to each other at readings. This is not a popular avenue anymore, since a lot of local poets would rather have their books published by small presses instead.

There's a lot of erosion-through-change of the local poetry scene since 2000. Once upon a time, there were quite a few more independent bookstores in LA/OC--and, in several cases, the stores would support local poetry and purchase chapbooks that were self-published and non-barcoded.
Now, there are far fewer independents--and some of those stores mimic the conformity of the local scene in only wanting local poets "established" with small press credits (it can't be just any small poetry press, it has to be the "right" press).

And sometimes, even those local poets don't always make it into these local independent stores with "high standards."

Today, I was at least happy to go by Skylight Books and see that Brendan Constantine's LETTERS TO GUNS (from Red Hen Press) is now being carried.

I really admire Brendan's poetry and respect him as a person (although our relationship hit a speed bump some years back which it has never fully recovered from, unfortunately)--so I'm happy to discover he's getting greater exposure to the Los Feliz/Silverlake reading audience.

Now, if Kerry Slattery of Skylight (plus other people she's deputized as buyers for the store) could start carrying chapbooks/books from some of Brendan's talented peers (Amelie Frank, Rick Lupert, Elizabeth Iannacci, the late Erica Erdman), that would be even better.

A brief summary of the decade in Los Angeles poetry.

In 2000, poetry in L.A. had room for just about everyone who wanted to participate.

As 2010 approaches, the remaining "scene" tends to have both official and unofficial quality controls in terms of the "prestige" readings. With the decline of "independent" bookstores and

coffeehouses, there are fewer "informal" readings. And even some of the remaining coffeehouse readings are now run by hosts that want to import gravitas more than nurture a viable writing community.

Re my current feelings: I'm reminded of BEING JOHN MALKOVICH's scenes where people, after being inside Malkovich's mind, find themselves dumped out alongside a New Jersey expressway.

More independent bookstores in L.A. than you'd know from reading the LA TIMES.

Longtime mainstay of the LOS ANGELES TIMES' book review section Susan Salter Reynolds wrote an article about the up-in-the-air status of West Hollywood independent bookstore Book Soup following the passing of owner Glenn Goldman: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-book-soup27-2009jan27,0,4988908.story

And, true to longtime form, the TIMES seems to maintain a steadfast belief that the only independent bookstores in the city of Los Angeles are Book Soup and Los Feliz' Skylight Books (with some understandable mourning of the demise of Doug Dutton's Duttons Bookstores chain--particularly last year's closing of the flagship Duttons in Brentwood). Of course, some of that may be due to tireless self-promotion by Goldman and Skylight owner Kerry Slattery.

Here's a link to information about the independent store Chevalier's Books in Larchmont Village:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/chevaliers-books-los-angeles

And here's a link to the site of Studio City's Portrait of a Bookstore (also housing the coffeeshop Aroma Cafe): http://www.portraitofabookstore.com/

One thing that Ms. Reynolds and I can agree on: Customers are more likely to receive personalized service at independent stores than at the faltering corporate competition.