In case you weren't keeping track, Arundel Books, which used to be a beautiful bookstore on 1st Avenue downtown, is now a beautiful bookstore in the old Wessel & Lieberman space facing Occidental Park in Pioneer Square. And Arundel founder Phil Bevis still publishes books, both under the Arundel Press shingle and, more expansively, as Chatwin Books. (One of Arundel Press's titles, Nicole Sarrocco's Karate Bride, is a Seattle poetry classic.)
Bevis has just announced that Chatwin Books is publishing collected poetry editions (with previously published and new work) from three poets: Maged Zaher, Jack Grapes, and Rex Wilder.
Zaher's will be the first in the series. Titled Opting Out: Collected Poems (2000-2015), it will be out sometime this winter. Next will be Last of the Outsiders: The Collected Poems of Jack Grapes Volume I, out in late winter or spring 2016, with the second, still untitled, volume arriving later in the year. The Collected Poems of Rex Wilder will be published in spring of 2016. (Bevis thanks Red Hen Press for giving "generous permission to use work from" Wilder's two recent Red Hen releases.)
Wilder and Grapes are both California poets. Zaher is a proud Seattleite (by way of Egypt), and a substantial collection of his work is a big deal for the Seattle literary scene, even moreso because he's being published by a Seattle press. Expect to hear a lot about this book in the next few months.