Adam Deutsch, editor for Cooper Dillon Books, a small poetry press in San Diego “founded on promoting and maintaining the values which make poems timeless,” offers the following insights into the world of small press publishing.

Tell us a little about the history of your press, where the idea came from, and what makes your press unique.

Cooper Dillon Books started up about this time last year.   Colleen Ryor and I were talking about starting up an all poetry press as she was walking away from the project she’d founded years ago, Black Lawrence Press—Dzanc had recently acquired them as an imprint. She wanted to honor her grandmother, whose maiden name was Cooper, who had the money to send her to the first writing program she’d ever attended as a child.  Dillon is another name from that family, so we settled on Cooper Dillon Books.  I didn’t really care what we called the press as long as we could make a positive contribution to the art and community. Max Xiantu and I have known each other for years, and when I told him about the press, he made the mistake of saying, “I’ll support any creative endeavor you ever get into.”  So, he became our Art Director.  He presented the thumb-up logo, and that was that.

Over the years, the three of us notice that there’s a lot of pop in poetry—books that come along and make a huge splash, but are then forgotten about.  They don’t have much replay-value.  It troubled us that so much poetry is defensive, or being used to attack, or react, or demand an idea be heard, regardless of what that idea is in service to. Similarly, far too many presses want “the best” which is a subjective abstraction.  We want to stand behind poems that are bigger than the individual who wrote it.  Our shared sense is that, built into every line, one feels the intention of that line, where the language resonates to change consciousness for the better. We want a poetry that transcends and sustains, so the mission became to promote and maintain the values which make poems timeless.

What are your thoughts on the growing accusation (as in a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education) that the rise of MFA programs and the relative affordability of starting a small press or a journal are creating a glut of poetry—that there are more people writing poetry and seeking a publisher than actually reading poems?

My thoughts are that I would never want to tear down anyone who aspires to make art. I also can’t begrudge anyone who wants to bring art into the world through a journal or press. Poetry’s a wonderful thing, and the more people who have a relationship with it, the better.

Someone who’s passionate will dig through the journals and presses to find what they love.  It’s similar to the casual music fan and the DJ: the former is happy with the radio and the hot new release, while the latter will dig through crates and crates at the record stores, just to find a single cut then share it with everyone else. There are far more records/albums/tracks than there are books of poetry/poems, and there are a lot of DJs out there.  Like poets, some are playing the club, some are spinning at house parties, but most are just enjoying it in their bedrooms because it’s exciting and fulfilling.  It’s not about economics or math. It’s a personal experience, however one wants to create or consume it. We engage in the art for the engagement, regardless of the cost or any reward.

I’m in the “more the merrier” camp. I’m too busy enjoying what dedicated people are doing to complain. I shout “Hallelujah.”

What is the role or place of the small press in the larger publishing world? Is it hurt or helped by the current publishing and bookselling climate?

The role of the small press, it seems, is to fill a void they find in the larger publishing world.  Most smaller presses don’t think about an author as a product. A small press usually involves a more personal connection. That might be why larger presses scoop up smaller ones all the time

Cooper Dillon couldn’t have accomplished anything if it wasn’t for other presses that started like us—Bloof Books, No Tell, Coconut, So New, Scrambler Books, Big Game Books, and the list goes on.

Smaller pressed are helped by the larger. The big houses are so huge that if they publish a mediocre book, they won’t care because they’re making all their money from selling other genres.  The work isn’t always strong, so people turn towards the small press world.  It’s like underground music—I’d rather see who’s playing at a small venue for a $5 cover than drop $150 to see a show at the Garden.  The work off a small press is intimate.  The editor has most likely taken food out of his own mouth just to bring you something they think will make your life better.

What are your feelings on e-books/chapbooks versus the printed {chap}book as an object?

E-books are the ideal format for journals, magazines, scholarly periodicals, and for some anthologies, or massive collected/complete works. We take our submissions through the Submishmash system and I read them all off of a nook so my computer monitor doesn’t further destroy my eyes. I can take the poems wherever I want without lugging paper, creating all that waste, etc.

It’s a given that small presses don’t necessarily have the marketing budget or the name recognition of larger presses, so what is your approach to getting the word out there?

So much is possible through social networking and word of mouth. Cooper Dillon makes it a priority to be at AWP, considering a giant chunk of our audience is all there at the same time. We also try to work with local business, and they promote out of gratitude (like B Street Hill at bstreethill.com, our t-shirt/button guy, who lives a few blocks from the press in North Park). The fellas at the local newsstand are happy to let me leave postcards in the journal section; the artists who’ve contributed covers are excited to promote the press when the art is in a gallery exhibition. All of these relationships help.

Also, we make it our business to team up with the presses who have published writers we publish. If you order The Wonderfull Yeare by Nate Pritts, chances are you’ll get a postcard for Honorary Astronaut from Ghost Road Press. If you get Jill Alexander Essbaum’s The Devastation, you’ll learn she also has Harlot from No Tell. When Gary L. McDowell won The Orphic Prize from Dream Horse, we celebrated that, and will promote for them when his book is available. I don’t feel other presses are in competition with Cooper Dillon—we don’t provide the same experience for a reader. If you love a book by Cooper Dillon, I’m happy to recommend other books published by other people if you want to read them. We’re a small press community. We’re in this together.

That being said, I think a single collection of poems—chapbook or full-length—will always be in print. Book making is a very real, very magnificent tradition, and the tactile sense is part of the entire experience. A collection is a physical artifact. This is part of the reason we work with original artist for covers of all our titles.

What do you look for in a poem or a {chap}book as a whole?

We’re looking for an experience we’ve never had before. Mike Madonick would say in workshop that he never knows what a poem is or should be until he actually sees it. It’s something new every time. I think this is true even with the poems we think we know by heart—each read is a new shift upward in our thinking and being.

Frankly, it’s hard to define: joy in aesthetic, beauty, honesty and intimacy. It’s something we simply wait for, and when it comes, we feel it resonate.

What do you think is the greatest challenge facing the small press community today and what is its best advantage?

As a community, the biggest challenge might be one of time. The people who run most small presses, I think, do it in their time between a full-time job, family, and other responsibilities. Editors also seem to be writers, and there’s that balance to strike. Once the time is made to take care of everything that needs to be done for the press, there might not be much time to actually collaborate as a community. I’m glad we’ve arrived in the era of email and cell phones.

Which brings us to the biggest advantage of being a small press—we have so much technology at our finger tips, and we know how to use it. We’re not so huge that we have to consult PR and legal departments before we take out an ad or decide to host a reading.. The big presses are all using Facebook and Twitter and blogs, too, but that’s all free, so it levels the playing-field. Whether it’s a book from Penguin or Noemi, layout software is layout software. We all can learn how to use it.

What have I failed to ask that you’d most like to say about your press, the world of poetry and/or publishing?

I wouldn’t mind adding a quick note that we also take submissions of visual art, and the guidelines can be found on our website. We want to collaborate with fine artists on covers that harmonize with the poetry we believe in. Sure, we could get stock art or public domain images for close-to-free or free, but doing so undermines the artists working hard in that field. We aim to promote visual art that resonates with us just like the poems do.