Tifani Greenwood
Trimmvirate Press
(c)2002
The press does not exist as it had in 2002. It might have come into existence just to publish this book. The poet might also have made this book as a way to dovetail into the art world. In either case, it's a bit of an Art Book that I am happy to have found along the way.
Ken Denberg
University of South Carolina-Aiken
Aiken, South Carolina
(c)1993
Winner of The Devil's Millhopper Press poetry chapbook contest of 1993. Cover art by Walter Boppert. Staple bound chapbook. Good poetry.
Soraya Hammer
self - produced
(c)2026
In April 2026 I ventured north to New England to take in the first ever Vermont Art Book Fair which took place in Burlington, Vermont on April 10 & 11. It was an amazing array of book artists and print makers and student made work (like this one).
Collage small formatted staple bound effort. I made her sign this copy. I believe she's a student at the University of Vermont. I hope she continues to produce art.
Gregory Espy
I know nothing of this man. I did a google search and according to AI (as though that is a reliable source) this man had enough of an electronic footprint that what AI spewed was nothing but gushy accolades. So, I looked for his books on Amazon and, ah, he used the same cover image for another book, Hidden Behind My Mask, which was published in 2019. The exact statue face.
This chapbook has zero publication history and do not list a publisher.
It's not my mystery to uncover. Also, I am not impressed with his poetry.
Edith Kamkar
Catalyst Books
Redwood City, CA
(c)2001
Woodcuts by Barbara Leventhal-Stern
Handsome book with wonderful illustrations throughout. Love the feel of the cover, but the paper stock the poems are printed on feel like Xerox stock. Alas. Then again, this was a 200 copy run of the second printing of the book. That's something to note.
Amy Allen
Rootstock Publishing
Montpelier, VT
(c)2024
Was recently in New England and visited a friend in Rutland, Vermont who took me to Phoenix Books where I saw this chapbook. It's regional. 28 pages. The poet lives and works in state. The poems are grounded and stable as the state itself. The cover art is by Lindsey Taylor.
Janet Adkins
Village Graphics
(c)1993
Illustrations by author. This chapbook is a stand alone publishing of a 1985 presentation of the same piece that was included in PULPSMITH magazine where it had won the Madeline Sadine award for best poem by a woman.
This staple bound chapbook has a wonderfully textured cover and had an inscription as well as being signed twice by the author (who doubled as the illustrator as mentioned).
The book cover is a wrap around image
Twenty years of blogging about poetry chapbooks
It just dawned on me this morning that I started writing about these “tiny slivers of nothing” 20 years ago. I had been collecting them long before I decided to write about them. In part, of course, because I was also publishing them (as Plan B Press) but also because I felt that they represented those fragile - hopeful beginnings that every writer, every poet needs to “put themselves out there” in the literature flow of our culture, of our consciousness.
I just started because I felt the poets and the presses and the printers involved needed to be remembered - because they made the effort, because they created the work, because they mattered. As informative as A Secret Location on the Lower East Side was when it was published in 1998 it was not all inclusive, nor did it claim to be.
What I have learned through my own investigation into small presses and their corresponding chapbooks is that they existed across the country. Because there was a need. Because the big publishing houses could not and would not publish every collection of poetry that came their way, nor should they have. But if a poet or a printer or a publisher be determined to bring something to fruition; the better for all of us.
Some of it was technologically driven; the less expensive the process of producing a book became - the more books appeared. The more imprints appeared. The more small presses there were. Some of the small presses grew into mid-sized presses. Toothpaste Press became Coffee House Press, for example. But many of the smallest presses remained so. Some on purpose.
That’s the reality as much as there is one. Another reality is that even with the advent of e-books, there is a certain portion of the reading public that prefers to hold something physical. And more than that : something tactile. Something that feels like something. Not a Print-on-Demand machine products wigget (they may as well be) but something made by hand, made with care, craftsmenship, and dare I say - with love.
That’s why I continue to blog about poetry chapbooks; because I love what they are. I love the effort put into the creation of them. I may not always love the poetry itself. But I love the effort and the process, and get terribly excited when I find a gem that was lost in the mass market world of slicky produced schlock that sometimes passes as “art” or “literature” in our commerical-based society that favors availabiliy and cost over quality and panache.
And you know it when you feel it.
Nicholas James Whittington
Bird & Beckett
San Francisco
(c) 2012
Bird & Beckett is a bookstore in San Francisco. Bird & Beckett is also an imprint of books printed through the bookstore. Nicholas James Whittington is a poet - who is the person who operates the imprint for the bookstore. Nicholas James Whittington has three books out through the imprint that he manages. While I like the concept and layout of the book, publishing three of your own books via an imprint that you also manage borderlines being a vanity press. Then again, this chapbook was released 14 years ago, and Nicholas James Whittington's stature has changed since then. Perhaps this imprint no longer exists. As a snapshot in one man's creative process, this is definitely worth the finding.
