Rummaging for Poetry

If a poem is read in the middle of the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

As more bookstores become financially backed by sidelines – i.e., an in-house café, a clothing section, whatever is not a book – the very definition of a bookstore is changing, and with that trending mutation, poets might soon have one less place to sound off.

After five years of bookselling on the Yale campus, Labyrinth Books is closing down in May in part because the bookstore does not feature any lucrative sidelines – it only recently started selling notebooks, albeit begrudgingly. Over the last half-decade, local poets have shuffled into Labyrinth to read original poems and the work of their mentors. 

“That’s our thing,” said employee Martha MacDonald. “Two months ago, [a group of] Yale poets came in … they usually pick someone who is new to read aloud.” 

“Poor poetry, poor bookstore,” said MacDonald.

Also in New Haven, Atticus Bookstore and Café is another location that poets can scratch off the reading list.

The New Haven bookstore and café stopped hosting poetry readings during National Poetry Month - the month of April - last year because it was “sort of a distraction” to the people eating lunch, said manager Colleen Carroll. Also, the turnout for the readings was decreasing every year, she said.

“Maybe poetry is a solitary endeavor,” said Carroll.

“Slam poetry (competitive original poetry readings) was really popular ten years ago, it's not as big as it used to be,” said Anthony Fusco, president of the Connecticut Poetry Society. “A lot of the people who used to organize it [in the New Haven region] have moved away.”

However, that’s not to say that poetry in general is dead. It is alive and well. It’s just not out in the open as much as before.

“Poetry over the last 20 years has been blossoming,” said Fusco. “It’s just a matter of looking.”

Case in point: The first three readings in the video above. Don Segal, Gemma Mathewson and Richard Jackson are all part of a poetry group called the Shoreline Cluster Poets. The group meets at the Scranton Library in Madison every first and third Tuesday of every month at 7 p.m.

“It gives me the courage to keep writing,” said Jackson, who joined the group six months ago. “I had no place to express myself. I’m writing so people can experience it.”