Meet…
1 August 2008
Trevor Calvert Publishes First Book of Poetry
SLIS student Trevor Calvert has recently published his first book of poetry, Rarer and More Wonderful
. It was in one of his classes at SLIS that Calvert met fellow student Jeremy Spencer, editor of independent small press Scrambler Books, who would end up being his publisher. "It’s not the first time I’ve been published," says Calvert, "but it’s the first time with my name on the spine."
Calvert, who will graduate in December, took a class with Spencer several semesters ago in which each student was required to create and maintain a blog. Calvert included a link to his personal blog containing some of his poetry. Spencer read the poems and contacted Calvert to ask if he could publish some of them on his online magazine, The Scrambler. The site, which features art, essays, music and poetry, also includes MP3s of Calvert reading several of his poems.
Earlier this year, Spencer asked Calvert if he would be interested in publishing his first book of poetry with Scrambler Books. Calvert revised an earlier manuscript and wrote a number of new poems to include with the collection. Chris Lane, an Oakland artist, provided the cover art, and the book was quickly published.
The book takes its title from the play Equus by Peter Shaffer, and is comprised of four parts. Some of the poems, explains Calvert, are a few years old, while some were written only weeks ago. The book is "concerned with endings," he states, and is "somewhat apocalyptic."
One section, "The Morality of Puppets," is a series of poems about Punch and Judy in which ideas of violence and the search for personal meaning are entwined. The section titled "Probability Map" has the strongest tie to Calvert’s relationship with library science. One poem is called "Aggregator" and addresses the topic of syndetic structure.
Following the book’s publication, Calvert has read at several events, including a book release party at Pegasus Books in Berkeley. He also participated in a poetry reading in Denver with several other writers. "It was a real honor and a privilege," says Calvert.
Calvert has been taking SLIS classes that focus on technologies such as social software, web 2.0 and web design, and hopes to work either in a public library or a special library. He is working on a new manuscript, and points out, "I don’t see the roles of librarian and poet as being exclusive to each other. I think they dovetail nicely."
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