Local bookstore brings poetry to the shelves

Located a mile from the UW campus, at 2414 45th St., Open Books: A Poem Emporium is one of only two exclusively poetry bookstores in the United States. The bookstore has an inventory of more than 9000 titles, including new, used and out-of-print books.

Husband and wife team John W. Marshall and Christine Deavel opened the store 13 years ago after having owned a more general bookstore for the seven years prior.

Marshall cited competition of other area bookstores as a major motive in focusing exclusively on poetry.

“With the U-Village Barnes & Noble and other bookstores going in, specializing was the best way to compete,” Marshall said.

The concentration on poetry was an obvious choice for Deavel and Marshall, as they both hold master’s degrees in fine art, in poetry from the University of Iowa and actively write in addition to their ownership responsibilities at Open Books.

Marshall is a recent winner of the prestigious Oberlin College Press FIELD Poetry Prize, which, in addition to a monetary award of $1,000, provided the poet a publication of a full-length poetry collection entitled Meaning a Cloud.

It is obvious when speaking to either Deavel or Marshall that they know their stuff when it comes to both writing and reading poetry.

“It’s much easier to sell books you can talk about,” Marshall said. “At our previous store, I had a bit of a hard time providing good recommendations for some other genres.”

With a plethora of poetry knowledge between them, Deavel and Marshall provide an excellent resource for the UW literary community, but Deavel emphasized that this is not their sole clientele.

“We appreciate that teachers make such a kind effort to send students our way, but we really do attract all kinds of people, not just UW folks,” Deavel said.

As one of just two poetry-only bookstores in the United States, with the other in Massachusetts, Open Books does attract a fair amount of out-of-town visitors as a tourist destination. In order to best serve this diverse group of customers, the bookstore aims to keep its inventory of poetry as comprehensive as possible.

“Our collection here is broad aesthetically so that people have the opportunity to try everything,” Deavel said.

In addition to more widely published works, Open Books offers a large collection of self-published chapbooks and literary journals.

Deavel and Marshall have their own printing press and have printed a number of chapbooks available at the store.

The experience at Open Books is truly pleasant, with shelves of great books to explore and expert help always at hand. It is this relaxed atmosphere and helpful service that sets Open Books apart from larger chain bookstores and Internet retailers.

“We don’t discount, so our competition has to be our knowledge,” Marshall said.

Open Books also hosts poetry readings on a regular basis. Recent readings have featured John Burgess, John Olson, Timothy Kelly and a reading by Raymond McDaniel this past Monday.

Deavel and Marshall’s motivation for opening and maintaining Open Books is simple.

“We’ve always found that we just really enjoy the bookstore community,” Marshall said.