On the first day of every semester in my poetry classes, I ask my students if they can name a single living poet. About one in three classes comes up with Maya Angelou. Every couple of years I might get Billy Collins. Sometimes a student I’ve had in another class will say “you.” I do it to illustrate to them (and to remind myself) that even the most famous poet is still a nobody to most people.
And that’s why I’ve long chuckled when I’ve seen the phrase “poetry bestseller,” because I’ve never had any sense of how many book sales in a week it would take to get on that list. A dozen? Twenty? A hundred? I think I’m being snarky about those numbers, but honestly, I have no idea.
American Poetry has a lot of questions about the world of poetry bestsellers. Don Share notes on his Facebook page that the Poetry Foundation uses Bookscan numbers and the SPD list for small presses. Makes me wonder, since I have a book coming out soonish, just what I have to do to game those lists, assuming it’s possible.
Edit: And, of course, as soon as I publish this, Don Share points to another post from American Poetry which goes even deeper into the issue of how poetry books are sold, how those sales are (or aren’t) counted, and speculates on the possibilities for poetry in the e-book market. A few weeks ago, I snarked on Twitter that the person who develops an easy way for poetry to be read in an e-book format while maintaining the integrity of the line will make dozens of people happy. I’d like to think that I’m underestimating that by a long shot.
