valued but unread

What most book collectors overlook is that the material object of the book would be absolutely worthless without the text within. Yet once the book becomes collectible, the object itself is barely if ever read for fear of harming the artifact.

market in action

If you want to gauge the current esteem (and value) of poets, those dead and some older living ones, then peruse the pages of a rare book dealer’s sales catalog. Is the name even there, and what kind of prices are listed for the books and other collectible literary material?

lesser editions

Book collectors seek nearly unread first editions. I love finding a dog-eared, beaten, heavily marked edition. I know then I’m in good company.

pristine copy

I saw an inscribed copy of your book at the Goodwill. It was in excellent (likely unread) condition, I must say.

against art books

Unless the poems are already in circulation and its a secondary publication, I have a visceral reaction against those poetry-art books that have to be handled with gloves and cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars for a limited & signed edition. I have an urge to violently dogear those pages, to intentionally spill coffee on such ‘projects’.

my odd book club

Being a book reader and not a collector, I have never minded that readers before me have marked the pages. As long as they are not too demonstrative, to the point of occluding the text, with their underlinings, checkmarks and margin notes, then I’m happy to have shared a book with other minds, some still living and others long dead.

scorn the collector

Only scorn for the collector who acquires a book he would never have read when it first came out but purchases now because of its rarity and material value.

book ruins

I awoke one day shadowed by the ruins of stacked books.