Poetry Flash, a Berkeley poetry review and newsletter that has been publishing for more than 40 years, may close before the end of the year because of a 27 percent increase in its rent.

Founded in 1972, the newsletter is currently operating out of a live-work space on Fourth Street, where the newsletter’s office doubles as a home for Joyce Jenkins, editor in chief and publisher since 1978. Since the complex is multiple use, it does not fall under the purview of rent control, allowing landlords the freedom to impose their own rates. The rent increase compounds organizational issues that emerged late last year after the death of Mark Baldridge, Jenkins’ business partner and husband.

Members of the literary community are contemplating how to remedy the situation before Poetry Flash is forced to end its publication. According to Poetry Flash contributing editor Dawn-Michelle Baude, there are many potential solutions for rescuing the newsletter, including fundraising, moving locations or finding a poetry patron who can help in keeping it afloat.

Baude said a solution would be turning film critic Pauline Kael’s Berkeley home into a Berkeley community poet center, where Poetry Flash could house its archives of American poetry and continue its work.

“The arts add so much to our community and economy,” said Sharon Coleman, contributing editor to the newsletter, in an email. “We need to change the law or policy and put live/work art spaces under rent control or provide special low-income spaces within new developments and renovated multi-space developments.”

Thomas Richardson, who said increased rent has compromised his five-year tenure at the live-work complex, said the “flavor of the complex has really changed in the last year” because of the increases in rent. Many tenants moved in with the promise of a community for artists, he said.

In 2010, Poetry Flash stopped printing for a circulation of 22,000 and became exclusively online, according to Los Angeles Times book critic David Ulin. Beyond including book reviews, poetry and a calendar of literary events, Poetry Flash is responsible for organizing a weekly reading series at Moe’s Books and Diesel, A Bookstore, and for organizing and sponsoring the Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival and the Northern California Book Awards, respectively.

According to Ulin, the “creative middle class” is being affected by landlords who are trying to gain a greater profit, especially at a time when the tech industry has caused increased housing costs in the Bay Area.

“(Poetry Flash) has been a vital contributor to the Bay Area’s intellectual ecosystem without being cliquish or exclusive or academic,” said Stephen Kessler, a poet recently published in the newsletter, in an email. “Its absence would be a devastating loss to the cultural and literary life of Berkeley and well beyond.”

Contact Jamie Nguyen at [email protected].