A look at the National Book Awards nominees / Poetry

Let's hope poets can't do math. The numbers are downright depressing. "Jack Ass: The Movie" elicited a slew of bad reviews but raked in more than $22 million on its first weekend. By contrast, a critically acclaimed book of poetry might sell 1,500 copies in a year. There's a meter at work in our culture that doesn't scan well.

But the National Book Award provides a rare moment of popular attention for a few poets. What's more, it's an arena in which small publishing houses can still compete with the giants. This year, for instance, little Copper Canyon Press in Port Townsend, Wash., earned two of the five nominations, knocking powerhouse Farrar, Straus & Giroux out of the running entirely.

Michael Wiegers, managing editor at Copper Canyon, knows how that kind of recognition can charge a book of poetry. "As soon as I saw the list of nominations, I told our production manager to start reprinting," he said in a recent phone interview. "Normally, a stock that would have lasted a couple of years was gone in a day ." By his estimates, a nomination doubles sales, and a win quadruples them. The winning poet will receive $10,000. Hardly Hollywood headlines, but not a bad rhyme for a book that might otherwise remain in complete obscurity.

The $1,000-per-plate awards dinner will be hosted for the fourth year in a row by writer-comedian Steve Martin and attended by about a thousand authors, editors, and publishers on Nov. 20 in Times Square. Reviews of the nominations for fiction and nonfiction appeared in the Monitor on Oct. 24. We'll review the young adult nominations next week.

- Ron Charles