But What They Do Isn't Outsider Poetry

I love it that Outsider Poetry Magazine is number three in the search rankings for Outsider Poetry. For many years an outfit named Sister Outsider had the whole page to themselves because they were named Sister Outsider, and the next word in the description was "poetry," but they had nothing to do with Outsider Poetry, don't write Outsider Poetry, don't perform, publish, or endorse it.

We do.

They do lovely work, but what they do isn't Outsider Poetry. 

We released a book this week. I'm not going to talk about the book because it just makes me angry, but it's always an exciting week when you release a new book. In the past few years I've become even more fond of rleasing other peoples' books. It's become a good time for me because I have a partner in jenny who is designing the books, and a great crew of craftspeople making books out of unusual materials like mahagony, leather, and tempered glass. 

I mean it's really amazing the quality and uniqueness of what we're making, and heartbreaking that I can't even get one in 5,000 people to stumble over at an event like City Market and put their cheap beer down to pick one up. I feel like I've let that author, the book designer, and the crafters down. That was my part of the show and I booted it. 

So, here I am on Sunday afternoon shirtless, sweating it out while Jenny takes the kids to see Parliament Funkadelic at Taste of Chicago so I can try and promote the book, and all I can do is fail then get angry about it. If I were there and 50,000 people walked by I'd still fail in drawing attention to a book with a tempered, etched glass cover, lush, gorgeous illustrations, a great story, and mahogony back cover stamped with a gold-leafed Koa tree. Oh, leather bound on glass. I'm real good at this.

Not.

But they are, and deserved a better outcome than this. 

You can check it out here if you want The Koa Tree (the book for sale here is the paperback version, bit the glass cover, but let me know if you want to buy one)