I lived down the street from a great used book store called ‘Twice Sold Tales’ for a number of years. They stayed open all night on Fridays and Saturdays and put all of their books on sale for half off from the hours of midnight until eight in the morning. I used to go buy a lot of books with the other night owls during those hours. They had a lot of interesting categories in that store. They had a bad poetry shelf, and they sold scads of used art books like ‘Horizon’ for a dollar each for a long time. They had carts of books outside every day right near the bus stop. These books were fifty cents each or three for a dollar. I bought tons of books from those carts while I was casually passing by, walking around my neighborhood.
I was working a lot in those days, you usually have to if you live in a city to be able to afford it. I didn’t get enough time to work on writing poetry and I felt pretty stifled as a result. I was trying to do everything I could to still feel like an active poet so when I saw books about the poetry online writer market on those outside carts I snapped all of them up. They were out of date but it didn’t matter to me. They were still full of useful information about small presses and different approaches, and plans of attack for getting your poetry published. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a writer in the public eye, but I liked thinking about it. It helped me take myself seriously. I didn’t do a lot with the yearly books about the poetry writers market except read them. They helped me feel better about myself as a writer and it helped me store up ideas for marketing myself when I finally might have the time again.
