Nigerian poet pens new verse in book shop’s tale

Daniela Caride

The image of Ifeanyi Menkiti is the latest portrait hanging on the wall of Grolier Poetry Book Shop.

Menkiti is in good company. His portrait shares space with Allen Ginsberg, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and dozens of other black and white pictures of poets and friends of the oldest poetry bookshop in America.

The 66-year-old Nigerian poet and professor of philosophy at Wellesley College gained the spot in the store’s “hall of fame” for several reasons, not least among them his passion for poetry.

But one of the main reasons is that Menkiti is now the owner of the Harvard Square store.

“There’s still a lot of things to be done,” said Menkiti about the store, which has in the past been haunted by the possibility of closing for good. “But I feel we are making progress.”

Since Grolier’s was founded in 1927, it has been increasingly endangered by new market trends. Yet its owners — real poetry fans — always found a way to allow it to survive as one of the nation’s top poetry hangouts.

Gordon Cairnie, one of Grolier’s founders, ran the small Plympton Street store at a loss for nearly 50 years. Fortunately, his passion was supported by family wealth.

Then Louisa Solano ran it on a shoestring budget until March 2006. But declining health forced Solano to question whether she could continue to operate the shop.

Enter Menkiti. He asked Solano if he could help. One thing led to another, and he eventually purchased Grolier’s in April 2006.

Now he is busy trying to balance the world of poetry with the realities of the modern-day publishing business.

“It means a lot to people to come here and buy a book, talk to other people,” Menkiti said. “Without the physical space, all of the wonderful men that came and all the wonderful things that have happened would be gone.”

Menkiti readily admits that running a poetry-only book is “not easy,” but he also believes that it is not impossible.

“The book market is changing quickly and people are reading poetry on the Internet,” he said. But “nothing substitutes for holding a book in your hand.”

Alice Quinn, executive director of the Poetry Society of America (PSA) and poetry editor for The New Yorker magazine, agrees that human contact and a physical space are crucial to the poetry business.

“It is so important to sample a book. It is totally different from reading a review,” Quinn said.

To make Grolier’s more efficient and financially viable, Menkiti is promoting major changes. He disabled alarm systems and cameras in order to create a friendlier atmosphere. Books were reorganized on the towering shelves and in the computer system to provide customers and employees easier access.

He believes that selling books and organizing events is the best combination to catapult Grolier’s into the black. He is also promoting book signings and poetry readings in Cambridge to attract more people to the store.

The store’s international poetry inventory is growing with the arrival of translated and bilingual books from all over the world, such as Chinua Achebe’s “Collected Poems.” The book by the famed Nigerian writer best known for his legendary novel “Things Fall Apart” includes the poem “A Wake for Okigbo,” translated by Menkiti, and written in memory of the poet and countryman Christopher Okigbo.

Achebe’s work is being offered at Grolier’s to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Okigbo’s death, which will be commemorated in the United States by a conference at University of Massachusetts in the fall.

Grolier’s is planning to participate.

“We are going to make sure the books will be here, make some publicity … and maybe have a little reception,” Menkiti said, sitting among Grolier’s high, book-lined walls.

Since Menkiti has to be at Wellesley during weekdays, Daniel Wuenschel was hired to be full time general manager. He has worked for years in the art and book market. At Grolier’s he has backup from a part-time employee, Elizabeth, as well as from Menkiti on Saturdays, and from Menkiti’s wife, Carol.

“We have changed many things around,” Menkiti said. “We are trying to keep it going.”

A father of four, Menkiti holds a bachelor’s degree from California’s Pomona College and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University. He has published four collections of poetry. “Affirmations” (Third World Press) came out in 1971, and “The Jubilation of Falling Bodies” (The Pomegranate Press) followed in 1978. He also published “Of Altair, the Bright Light” (Earthwinds Editions) in 2006 and “Before a Common Soil” (Ilora Press) this year.

Menkiti has taught at Wellesley since 1973 and has been a Grolier’s regular since coming to Cambridge in 1969. During those years, he never thought of buying the store.
But timing is everything. When he learned that Solano was interested in selling, Menkiti said he was sure someone would make an offer. Because he was the only one to make an offer that would keep Grolier’s a solely poetry bookstore, an agreement was sealed last year.

“I would love to keep the cultural vision going,” said Menkiti about the store. “You feel that a lot is resting on your shoulders, but you have to carry the vision forward, and you don’t want to disappoint all these people.”

Menkiti says his job at Grolier’s will be a bit easier than Solano’s. “She was here alone,” he remembers.

Solano may have experienced financial problems, but she succeeded in keeping Grolier’s famous.

She became a widely known source of rare poetry books and turned Grolier’s from “largely a social club” into a true bookstore, Wuenschel said. Solano has fostered the growth of a special collection of poetry that ranged from the classics to the contemporary, from the obvious to the obscure.

Quinn, of the PSA and The New Yorker, believes that market trends are in Grolier’s favor.

“Poetry has never been more popular,” Quinn says. “The PSA promoted an event recently and 900 people showed up. The society had to turned away 300 people. It is different from the past.”

Quinn remembers when she was a regular at the store in the 1970s and how much its peculiar atmosphere influenced her.

She recalls one time in 1971 when mulled for hours over how to spend her only $20 in five books at the store. When she finally headed to the counter, Gordon Cairnie said: “You know, all these books you chose are on sale today for $2 each.”

“Gordon was incredible,” Quinn said. “He cared a lot about people who loved poetry and he wanted to guide them. Grolier’s was one of these one-stop inspirational places.” The store is listed as a “poetry landmark” by the Academy of American Poets.

At big book conglomerates, however, poetry is vanishing from shelves, according to Wuenschel. “It is a big mistake,” he said, because even though poetry books are likely to sit on store shelves for longer than titles in other genres, poetry buyers tend to several books each time they purchase one.

“Poetry in conglomerate publishers is shrinking too,” said Jeffrey Wang, poetry editor of New Directions Publishing. He says that large companies publish poetry “for love and fun, but not for money.”

Menkiti agrees. He says that publishers generally focus on bestsellers and publish a few books of poetry only once in a while.

“It doesn’t make money for them. They do so much better publishing a novel or a cookbook,” he said. “But a world without poetry is a very, very impoverished world.”