Publishing poetry is a risky endeavour, one usually restricted to small presses. Without them, the literary landscape would be very different according to Jocko Benoit, a teacher, critic and author of two books of poetry.

His most recent book, Standoff Terrain, is part of a 10-book edition, Dektet 2010, published by Calgary’s Frontenac House. Benoit argues that without these types of publishers, there would be no poetry books, or that poets would have to self-publish.

David and Rose Scollard, the founders of Frontenac House, have been releasing quartets of poetry every April since getting into the business in 2001. It was something that they sort of did on a whim, according to David. And although Frontenac has expanded into other areas — art books, political satire and books on aviation — it remains focused on poetry.

This year, rather than releasing the annual quartet, Frontenac released the Dektet — 10 books of poetry celebrating 10 years in the business.

Finding authors for such an ambitious undertaking isn’t all that hard; the Scollards say they receive somewhere between 100 and 150 submissions every year. This year, the jurors — noted poets bill bissett, George Elliot Clarke and Alice Major — had to choose 10 manuscripts from 260 submissions. According to David, the jurors were given a wide mandate because “we didn’t want the books all looking the same.” The goal was to present a wide spectrum of styles, ethnic backgrounds, genders and age groups. “These are distinguished poets, they come from different intellectual communities and they represent a breadth of voices,” he says. There are angry street voices, academic voices, voices from the gay and transgendered communities.

Public response, although anecdotal, appears to be positive. Recent events, including launches in Edmonton and in Calgary, as part of the Calgary International Spoken Word Festival, were reasonably well-attended.

“I understand the poem better when I hear the writer read the poem,” says David. “It adds a whole new dimension to my understanding of the work, and gives me a greater level of insight.” The search for insight also motivates ex-Calgary poet Nikki Reimer. She believes that poetry should not necessarily make you comfortable, that it doesn’t have to be esthetically pretty. Instead, she says, poetry should challenge the reader or audience. In her latest collection of poems, [sic], which is also part of Dektet, Reimer explores the role of the city, which she sees as having a sort of humanity to them. Social concerns permeate her work, but she also addresses topics such as the role of art within a city like Calgary. Reimer says she is interested in how corporate culture overtakes and dictates cultural values within society in general.

In crafting her poems, Reimer likes to start with something that grabs her from an emotional place, whatever that place is, and then work through the emotion while playing with the language.

This interrelationship is also a concern of Toronto-based poet Keith Garebian. He writes specifically about the Armenian genocide in his Dektet collection Children of Ararat, but addresses broader issues and emotions in his poems.

Other poets in Dektet turn their attention to the typical subject matters of poetry: desire, lust, love, death and the nature of life. There is bound to be an author in this broad collection who will speak to you, whatever your poetic tastes.