Charles Jensen | Writer

This weekend, at least for part of the time, I will buried up to my neck in articles and readings for the research paper I’m writing for my class. It explores why nonprofit presses have sprung up and even proliferated in an otherwise highly profitable commercial market—publishing.

I’m particularly interested in why poetry has been engulfed by the nonprofit press segment and what impact is has on literature and on reading habits.

So far, I have read many articles that indicate that a mass shift in the publishing industry in the mid-90s drew most of our major publishers under the auspices of just a few multinational conglomerate enterprises, like Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch, some German folks, and even some British firm.

With fewer spoons stirring the poet, there are fewer risks taken by the “big” houses…leaving a market failure gap for the reading public who value experimental literature, poetry, and other related texts.

Nonprofits frequently exist to fill perceived gaps in for-profit markets in “public service” to a niche community of stakeholders.

Master’s degree, here I come.