Trust a publisher

Right now I am reading Filip Marinovich’s And If You Don’t Go Crazy I’ll Meet You Here Tomorrow, which means I get to have moments like this:

The only joy left is in movement and I’m moving tomorrow
to outer space where I can relax and take in the crowds

and tropical birds in burnt nests. The bombed building is
our jungle gym where a long yellow tongue of

flytape hangs from a silver chandelier studded with black gumdrops.
I feel there will always be something between us, namely the Dante icon

hanging from my neck on a white wire coathanger
but as long as you’re willing to bear its impression

on your white, ivy colored body, I will be willing to carry on.
–from “AMERICA DEATH IN NEW YORK”

I had never heard of this book and didn’t have to seek it out: instead it found me, arriving on my doorstep as part of my 2011 Ugly Duckling Presse subscription. A little stack arrived in the mail and I just dug in (not jealous enough yet? What about Uljana Wolf’s False Friends or Yvan Yauri’s Fire Wind, or…). So far this subscription is one of the best decisions I made in 2010, and so I write here today on behalf of: small press subscriptions. In an age when even your Gmail is working around the clock to figure out what you want to buy, why not call in some greater wisdom: stop worrying about deciding what you think you want, and just trust a publisher.

By subscribing to a publisher, you give them your vote, trusting their taste to inform and educate your own, even when you have your disagreements. You also provide much-needed income to independent publishers in difficult economic times (helping them ride out these challenging first few years of e-books, the demise of Borders, and the rest of the recent rough winds). If you’re nervous about the commitment, why not split a subscription or two as you split a farm-share box, trade with friends? (Or I guess you can trade poetry for extra daikon, too, why not?)

Some presses that offer subscriptions: Ugly Duckling’s subscriptions are beloved, highly recommended, and also go fast (you’ll have to wait to check in for next year, though you can still of course subscribe to 6×6). Check out the literature in translation publisher Open Letter–I can wholeheartedly recommend, for instance, their just published The Sixty-Five Years of Washington by Juan Jose Saer. Open Letter offers both half-sized and full subscriptions, and a list to sink your teeth into (for instance, see also: Mathias Enard’s Zone, the much-discussed 500-page one-sentence novel).

Also for literature in translation, there’s the eminent and amazing Archipelago Books, whose recent titles include Ernst Weiss’s Georg Letham, Physician and Murderer, Mahmoud Darwish’s Journal of an Ordinary Grief, and more.

I warmly recommend the “library of chaotic and investigative work” (chaotic may give you the wrong idea–exuberant, ardent, but above all well crafted) that is Rescue Press, which also offers full-year subscriptions.

The list could (and should) go on: McSweeney’s was one of the first (in fact the first?) to herald the subscription model, and through the years their strange and fantastic books-as-art-objects have reminded us why there’s books beyond PDFs, mail beyond email. They offer a “book-release club,” eight books a year for $100. Ahsahta Press offers a year of its poetry for less than $100. Counterpath Press offers subscriptions, publishing poetry, fiction, translations, cross-genre work, drama, and literary and cultural theory, to “[support] communities of readers and artists who are interested in linguistic and visual interventions in contemporary global culture.” See also Les Figues Press. I’m sure I’m neglecting many. The best advice: find the publishers of your most beloved books and see if next year they will become your valentine.