Share That Existence
by Jennifer Dearinger
When and where one happens it will surprise us not in itself
but in its coming to our attention not as something
suddenly present but as something that's been near for
a long time and which we have only just noticed
When we might ask did we begin to share that existence
—Lyn Hejinian, Happily
Happily is among the first books I purchased from SPD. I jogged down the path from the Berkeley Marina, precariously positioned between the freeway and the bay, to a small patch of sand in Emeryville, where I sat upon a wet log, extracting a small treasure from my jacket pocket. Happily. My first complete Hejinian book, read in its entirety on a log in Emeryville.
That morning brought a huge release since at the time, I had little time for pleasure reading. As an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, I was consumed by schoolwork for usually eight hours a day, encountering standard, canonical works put out by a handful of big-name publishers. I barely had the time to dedicate to academics, let alone to think about contemporary poetry or where it came from.
Though towards the end of my undergraduate career, now nearly five years ago, I actually began writing poetry. This process introduced a new circle of friends, new events to be attended, and new books to be read—the fantastic horizon of contemporary poetry. And as my book collection grew exponentially, independent booksellers around Berkeley became my haven. As luck would have it, a new friend worked at Pegasus Books on Shattuck, ordering for the poetry section. That she ordered this vast array of titles from such diverse publishers from a singular distributor amazed me. But it got even better. This amazing distributor was actually in Berkeley, and, surprisingly, I could go.
Upon first venture into SPD’s large warehouse, I would have locked the entire room into a treasure chest with a shining gold key if I could. It would have been astonishingly appropriate, though once you’ve been to the warehouse, you’ll understand the impossibility. I could easily have walked out with hundreds of books had my student budget allowed, though I still walked out with several, including Hejinian’s Happily published by Post-Apollo.
In the years that followed, I continued to visit the SPD warehouse fairly regularly, and began attending the semi-annual Open House events. SPD not only offered great new additions to my budding bookshelf, but also opened their doors for gatherings of local writers and bibliophiles, all in appreciation of this treasure trove of shiny new books.
My life has changed quite a bit since my first introduction to SPD. Last year I returned to school, to complete an MFA at Mills College. Having spent the last year and a half focused on creative output, I’ve found I’ve been reading even more. I feel that in order to write I need to understand both the influences from which my work is stemming and the poetic atmosphere into which my work will hopefully emerge. Access to independent poetry, by way of SPD, is essential in this process, in my becoming as a writer.
I have been a fan of SPD for over five years, and interning in their office since September. I am now not only a graduate student, but also the mother of a toddler, so needless to say I don’t have much free time. But after years of invaluable poetic finds, I am ecstatic to offer SPD the few hours a week that I can, to be even a small part of such an essential resource for new independent literature. And the best part is that getting involved was so simple, and started simply in coming by, in browsing the warehouse and getting to know what they offer. SPD had, “been near for a long time,” but suddenly I could “share that existence” with such an amazing and invaluable organization.
Jennifer Dearinger is an Intern at SPD. She has a B.A. in English Literature from the University of California, Berkeley, and is in her last year of study as an MFA at Mills College. Her newest joy is letterpressing poetry for this is not a french press.