Celebrating Poetry
Welcome to The Poetry Shop, an independent online book store just for poetry.
Our Story
The Poetry Shop started with a hunch. The founders, husband and wife Katie and David, were waiting at the airport for a flight to Las Vegas. Katie was opining about how tricky it can be to find poetry books and wished for an easier way, "what if there was a poetry-only online bookstore that stocked the best contemporary poets?"
David, a designer and consultant, kept thinking about it long after their return from Vegas, and the two began discussing the idea on their weekly date nights. Amazon and Bookshop have all the books, but don't promote poetry. Publishers don't put marketing dollars behind poetry books. Libraries are already stretched thin and can't stock a wide-ranging assortment.
They devised a plan: create a place for readers to discover new work and for poets to find new audiences. Six months later, in November 2025, The Poetry Shop went live. Now, with over 2,500 titles listed, a growing social media following, and a growing community of happy customers, David and Katie are hopeful the vision is coming to life.
Our Strategy
Brick-and-mortar stores, online retailers, and even public libraries carry a slim collection of poetry. Independent bookstores in particular are facing major headwinds due to high overhead cost of retail spaces and the inventory cost of carrying an assortment of books. This is even tougher for niches like poetry, whose audience can be very slim, making it very hard to reach an audience that can sustain the business. We are also mindful of the environmental impact of packaging and shipping in anything we do.
We knew we had to be selective in setting up our business model soyou can find the books you want from our seasonal and inspired collection.
We established a digital storefront and distribution relationship that allows us to:
- List a wide selection of contemporary poetry
- Highlight new releases on social media once a week, follow us on Instagram.
- Get recommendations from poets through interviews shared on our blog and on Instagram
- Send an email every week to keep subscribers up to date
- Minimize the impact of shipping and transit
Our Approach & Fulfillment
To offer thousands of poetry titles in the most sustainable and efficient way, we operate as an authorized, independent boutique retailer. We operate our family-owned business from San Diego, California and partner with Ingram Content Group, the nation's premier book distribution network.
When you place an order with us, it is processed securely by our team and fulfilled directly from our distributor's domestic US fulfillment centers in Tennessee or Oregon. This direct integration ensures that your books are always brand new, handles transit efficiently, and significantly reduces our carbon footprint by skipping an unnecessary leg of shipping.
The Poetry Shop LLC is a registered California-based company. We are a fully verified and authorized US retailer (IRS EIN-verified) operating under the strict consumer protection laws of the United States. Our registered administrative office is located at 16633 Gill Loop, San Diego, CA (Note: No walk-in retail; all orders fulfilled via our distribution network).