Literary rescue
2/7/2004
READERS: Go buy books at the Grolier Poetry Book Shop on Plympton Street
in Cambridge! The one-room store is struggling financially, but open and
crammed with some 16,000 poetry books, according to owner Louisa Solano.
"I need as many sales as possible to pay off bills," Solano says
bluntly. And book-lovers can understand: It's better to rally the troops
to save a beloved store rather than organize a pity party once a
storeowner has no other option but to close.
Time seems to have bent around Grolier. Walk in and it could be 2004 or
1964. Customers are surrounded luxuriously by books. The featured
photographs of poets are all black and white. The sign hanging outside
says "est. 1927," boldly indifferent to being hip, new, or attractive to
cell phone-loving teenagers. Hand-written signs promise
African-American, British, Irish, Slavic, Chinese, and Australian
poetry. The center table holds a load of discounted books, their lower
prices a seductive way to attract readers to the work of lesser-known
poets. The store hosts a series of readings; the next one, on Feb. 19,
features Russian poet Dmitri Prigov.
What's Grolier's future? Stay tuned. Solano says several buyers are
interested in the store. Solano also talks of supplementing the store by
selling books on the Web -- a good idea that could attract top-dollar
buyers. So she's looking for a webmaster who could donate services to
rehabilitate the store's ailing website.
"I used to say: `I farm books,' " Solano says, explaining the physical,
mental, and emotional labor that she puts into the store.
It's hard to find that kind of passion in stores that sell logo-laden
products that come to seem strangely useless in a year or two. In sharp
contrast, Solano offers shoppers the more substantive fare that only
merchants of metaphor can provide.
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