Craft: In Defense of Chapbooks

Bidart, Book, Cooper, Cronk, Harper, Herbert, Knight, Parks, Stonecipher

In my editorial services work I come across a lot of people who’ve had bad lessons or magical thinking that have been gleaned from perhaps dubious sources. One of these thoughts is that a chapbook is some kind of junior varsity version of a “full length” book, or some kind of lesser book that people settle on if they can’t publish a “full length” book.

Chapbooks are the indie label, the handmade sweater, the handshake, the intimate gesture, and the discrete expression. They’re the incantations, tales, ballads, blues, and tracts sold by peddlers. They’re the romance and the dewy center. In general it is harder to be concise than to go on.

Chapbooks are often riskier, are more physically beautiful, are more tactile, have more textural paper, have a handmade, homemade feel, and show a poet in a specific moment.