The first showcase included 823 entries. This year organizers have gathered close to 2,200 books of, and about, poetry: anthologies; chapbooks; translations; poetry-related prose (essays, memoirs, academic works, biographies); poetry objects (poetry baseball cards, a series of poetry postcards); and multimedia titles published in the 14 months since the 2009 showcase. Maggie Balistreri, the Poets House librarian, is careful to avoid vanity presses (which publish books at an author’s expense) but embraces the pliable notion of the book as an art object, playful and tactile: poems are hidden in matchbooks, wrapped in cloth, rolled to resemble cigarettes, or, in the case of Dana T. Lomax’s “Lullaby,” curled inside a plastic prescription bottle. A good chunk of the exhibition’s appeal is its tangibility, an increasingly precious commodity in an era of virtual consumption.

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