Powell's City of Books
For some reason that defies memory Powell's brings to mind John Sayles movies of the 1990s--sincere, well made, good solid story-telliing, working class values, independent--though Powell's has changed through the years to accomodate the public thirst for entertainment and corporate organization.
In the days when I first visited Powell's I'd park across the street at the small Doc Martens lot, day or night, for free: there always seemed to be a spot for me. I'd walk into Powell's and walk out of Powell's two, three hours later with books I'd never find anywhere else, and if not books then ideas I'd never had before, ideas that were new to me or, even better, old ideas that people had had years ago and put into books because they were new and exciting at one time and so deserved preservation.
Once, for some reason, I clearly remember standing at the check-out counter many years ago with an armful of books that included an examination of the role punctuaton plays in the prose of Samuel Beckett, the daybook of Wallace Stevens, a book on golf, and a first edition of a novel Joyce Carol Oates based on the real-life abduction of a child beauty queen, many of them in hard-cover and all of them used, therefore discounted. Joyce Carol had signed the book, though I didn't notice this spiff until I returned to California. I remember standing in line at Powell's checkout counter thinking, no one else would be interested in these books, these books were written especially for me of whom there is no other.
It was at Powell's where I first realized that all poetry is obscure. There were bookshelves and bookshelves of obscure poets and poetry in The Blue Room at Powell's. As a poet dealing with obscurity issues at the time, reading somewhere in Wallace Steven's prose that, all poetry is experimental poetry, I'd taken obscurity to heart, having purchased Stevens's book of essays, "The Necessary Angel", on a visit to Powell's in the early 90s. On every subsequent trip to Powell's I'd find a little space for myself among the great, near-great, and not-so-great poets of the past, present and future, learning, among other things, never to read poets with three names born after 1920.
It was at Powell's that I discovered the contemporary poetry of Chelsey Minnis, where a sort of fraudulent poetry rings true, and Mary Ruefle whose poem, 'Little Golf Pencil' I plan to use in a book about golf I'm planning to write. And the sweet correspondance Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse conducted during a relatively benign period when the earth was peopled by artist's who were civilized and able to maintain their benevolent natures even during wartime.*
Powell's has changed through the years, changed more than I have. One can't park at Doc Martens anymore, unless one works or is shopping there. There are more books than ever at Powell's, though less of the books I like to read, and many, many more people shopping for them than I ever remember. Powell's shoppers now walk through the store with the same sort of hand-held shopping baskets that shoppers at Whole Foods or CVS use to ply with heads of lettuce or boxes of Nyqyuil. Powell's is now officially a corporate enterprise: I can feel it just by walking around. No longer could I hear, as I did in the 90s, the surprise of a great first line of a poem, or the laughter that resides in so many of them. I didn't see a single young man or woman standing in the aisle flipping through the pages of Heidegger, looking for something presumably meaningful. I see instead an industry, a promotional juggernaut open everyday from 9 am to 10 pm.
As a publisher I understand; as a reader I'm a little sad. Though as a publisher I must say I'm also slightly concerned, and not just about Powell's but about my role in the whole publishing shebang. Am I doing the right thing? Does the world need more books? After all, we haven't done so well with books, but where would we be without them? Where will the books I publish end up? In the dump, in a donation bin? Is it really a good thing that so much of my life seems to be comprised of the books I've read, and even more so by the books I've written?
If I haven't said this yet I'll say it now: I always get new ideas when I shop at Powell's.**
*I always search the shelves at Powell's for Bonnard's diary, a book I once saw for sale at an English language bookstore in the Marais, Paris, and should have purchased then and there but did not, the book having subsequently disappeared.
**FYI, the restrooms at Powell's are now locked with security codes for entry, another sign of creeping corporatism. The code for the mens' restroom is 8541.