Interview :: NYQ Editor Raymond Hammond

The Best American Poetry December 11 section Meet the Press features an interview by Nin Andrews with Raymond Hammond, editor of NYQ Books and The New York Quarterly, exploring the history of the press, the kinds of books the press looks to publish, promoting poetry books to readers, and much more.

Commenting on NYQ Books press, Hammond says: “The first premise was to say to ourselves, ‘Poetry doesn’t sell.’ And while this statement sounds self-defeating and is open to all sorts of debate and sounds like a cry of desperate mediocrity, there is an element of truth to it which immediately removes any grand expectations that we will sell thousands of copies of each book we publish. By removing this expectation, we can publish and keep in print books that don’t immediately sell right alongside books that do, and we are hoping that eventually the press will work as a single organism, some books supporting the others—but keeping all in print.”