Poetry Magazine

So you may have heard that Borders is…well…dying, I guess would be the right word for it. They filed for bankruptcy and announced that they were going to close about a third of their 600 stores all across the country. The initial list of closing stores included just the downtown location here in Indianapolis, but a second round of closings gobbled up the store near the Fashion Mall. To my knowledge, those were the only two bookstores in town that carried Poetry magazine, and I am now at a loss as to where I can get my hands on an actual hard copy of the magazine.

And before you start damning me for a Luddite, yes, I am well aware that the full contents of every issue of the magaizine are available at no charge on their website on the magic Internets. In fact, I have already saved a copy of the story that caught my attention in the current issue of the magazine. I am also aware that I can use their magic Internets portal to buy an actual hard copy of the magazine. The point is not having access to what’s in the magazine. The point is finding a copy of the magazine somewhere in town.

I called the Barnes & Noble at Clearwater Crossing, but the gentleman I talked to said that it looked as though they had not carried Poetry since summer of last year. I don’t remember ever seeing it on the shelf there, but it’s just since last year that I’ve really gotten serious about my writing, so it’s entirely possible that I wasn’t really looking during the time when they did carry it. It’s also possible that I just never looked at all, since I always go to Borders first and Barnes & Noble only if the three most convenient Borders stores fail to turn up what I’m looking for.

Today I checked the Borders on the south side and the Barnes & Noble at the Greenwood Park Mall and did not find the magazine at either store, though I was not expecting to. The Greenwood Barnes & Noble has a surprisingly robust newsstand, given where it’s located. (The infestation of In God We Trust license plates is particularly virulent on the south side, to the point that I’m surprised that side of town can support one bookstore, never mind two—and the Barnes & Noble carries Nature, if you can believe it.) I’d give up on the Greenwood Barnes & Noble altogether, except for the fact that they carry—or used to carry—Canteen. I nabbed issues four and five there, but I haven’t seen issue six yet (and according to their website, issue seven is supposed to hit stores this spring).

Even before Borders started closing stores, the Clearwater Barnes & Noble had the best selection of literary magazines—but not Poetry—of any of the local bookstores that I frequent; but I rarely get out to the west side, and I don’t like going to Hamilton County, so I don’t know what the Barnes stores in those areas carry. I hope that Borders can regroup and get back in the game, but I’m not optimistic. Their web presence was a disaster for many years (during which time Barnes & Noble basically cornered whatever parts of the online market Amazon had not already assimilated), and apparently no one bothered to tell them that this time around e-books are for real.

And yeah, John-O the Luddite still wants to be a writer and publish, you know, actual books. What the hell, right? If anyone knows of a store that carries Poetry, I’m all ears. I don’t know if I’d walk a mile for a Camel, but I’d go to Hamilton County for a copy of Poetry.

Maybe.