Open Books Web-Site

This is a Poetry Book-store in Seattle, WA and while I do not live anywhere close and have never personally visited I did read an article months ago about them. Poetry Only book-stores are very rare and this is one of them. Even if you cannot visit in person you can find lists of their books available for order on-line and if you are looking for a particular poem or poet who you can’t quite put your finger on they will help you find the answer! I e-mailed them and asked if I had gotten my facts right that the book-store was part of the owners’ house and they responded to that and much more! Here they are quoted directly:

“The bookstore is not in our house, not yet. The store is street-level on a busy arterial in what was the garage and basement of a 100 year old bungalow. The upstairs part of the building was a restaurant for 7 years and has been vacant for 4 years. We are remodeling it back into a residence and will live there someday.We gain customers and lose customers as the years move along. We started in this neighborhood with a small general bookstore 20 years ago, moved it and turned it into poetry-only 12 1/2 years ago. We have watched the children of some of our customers grow up, and attended the funerals of some of our customers.We enjoy the store a great deal. There are headaches, of course, as with any business. We enjoy the art form and like many of the people who enjoy too.We changed to poetry-only as it became clear that owning a small general bookstore was becoming very difficult, what with Barnes & Noble, Borders,and Amazon (which was just beginning to make waves when we made the change).The mass market approach to literature was not for us. We each had studied poetry on the graduate level, knew and read poetry, and were able to talk about it to customers, something we couldn't do with science fiction, etc.When we closed the first bookstore most of our business there was in poetry and poetry-related books, so the move made sound business sense.Thanks for your interest,John”Open Books: A Poem Emporium2414 N. 45th Street Seattle, WA 98103(206) 633-0811www.openpoetrybooks.com


Please check them out by clicking the links and do feel free to drop them a line or an inquiry about a poet or a poetry book!

http://openpoetrybooks.com/index.html

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s Poet that has Passed….