Chapbooking: some reflections

Kieth has an interesting post on the intricacies of chapbook production -- a guide for the DIYers. One thing though: for Sky of Ink, I downloaded a chapbook template from the League of Canadian Poets website, here. Downloads are free for anyone. We were able to alter its configuration to take legal sized pages folded in half, which is a size I like for poetry, as it provides "breathing room" especially for long lines. (It does limit, though, one's choices of paper.) The nice thing about this template is that you paste the poems in sequentially and it automatically recto-versos them for you in the right order. Then we take the file to our local copy shop and presto!

Chapbooks, as Keith says, can serve as a poet's business card. They're the literary equivalent of the music EP.

The chapbook length, as I've said elsewhere, is to my view the most suitable for poetry, considering the intense demands poetry makes on its readers; one can conceivably get through a chapbook in one sitting. The full length trade book demands a considerably greater a commitment. Was it Thorton Wilder who said that out of any city we create a village we call our own? Most poetry readers dip into collections; it could be said that out of every full-length collection, we create a chapbook we can call our own.

Besides, look at the organization of many a poetry collection: a lot of them are simply subdivided into parts -- a series of chapbooks.

For all its advantages as a reading experience, the chapbook in our culture has a problem of status. It is akin to the part-time job. Full-length books, like full time jobs, get all the benefits: reviews, prizes, inclusion in libraries, etc. -- even though part-timers may put in the most inspired work! (I know that's true of teaching, at any rate.) In the States particularly, there are a number of chapbook manuscript competitions with promise of prize $$, honour, publication -- some of these may even raise money for their publishers. You can find them listed every month in Poets & Writers. But there are precious few prizes for finished DIY-type chapbooks. The BP Nichol competition is one; the WCDR international chapbook challenge, in which our own Nina Bruck came out a winner for 2008, didn't run this year and appears sporadic, if not defunct. These are the only ones I know of. Can anyone out there suggest another?

Another disadvantage: chapbooks tend to get lost on a shelf.

So why make chapbooks? Well, these productions are a joy to make, and a means to grow. Publishing is an integral part of the creative process: juxtaposing poems in fresh combinations, seeing how they relate to one another, or how motifs repeat can be a real eye-opener. Ones' editorial skills are instantly honed when one prepares one's work for public exposure in this way. If one doesn't have a tradebook publisher ready to publish one's work, this can be a good intermediate step.

More kudos for Nina Bruck! (re-edited, re-posted)

It's official: Nina Bruck is one of the three winners of the WCDR 2008 Poetry Chapbook Challenge, for Still Light at Five O'Clock (Sky of Ink Press). The other two winners are Teresa Donat Banks for Resident Alien (Believe your own press, Toronto) and Bill Howell, Ghost Test Flights (Rubicon Press, Toronto). (There is no first/second/third prize for this award: according to the contest organizer, narrowing it down to three is hard enough.)

Here are the judge's comments on Nina's book:

The poetry: This collection is a mature, wry, and accessible series of delightful, sure and confident poems. It is peopled with clearly evoked characters, places, and times – spanning the period from the ‘30s to the present – and captures exactly the different ages the poet lives through. There is no self-pity here, despite some rough times: radiation treatments faced with the hilarity of accurate observation (“Three young technicians aim my breast / at The Machine, / flee to another room”); the memory of a dead father beginning to fade, his cane in the basement “casting no shadows”; and the elegant sense that even after a lengthy failed marriage, the better memories will keep returning (“I made myself a dry martini, / missing the cool precision of his lemon peeler - / its perfect spiral”). And then there’s a playful but expert wordplay, the kind of thing that continues to make poetry, despite the seriousness of the theme, fun (“to the cold heat / in the sweat’s pit / where the orange rots / then the hot’s not / to the deaf eyes / and the tom thumb / and the legs bite / where the clocks run / and the song stops / on the second hand / and there’s no land / to land on”).

The chapbook: The book displays perfect, simple production values, the cover unadorned and of the same colour as the pages. Its outsized format and generous typeface contribute to the delight and seriousness of the collection. We have nothing but praise for the publisher’s production of this book.

On the same WCDR link you can also see video excerpts of the winners reading. Sample poems have also been posted.

For more poems and info. on Nina, her book and Sky of Ink Press, click on the labels below.

Still Light at Five O'Clock may be ordered from me for $12.50 (Cn. or Am., postage included) at beedeecee@videotron.ca

Kudos for Nina Bruck

Nina Bruck's chapbook, Still Light at Five O'Clock, published by my chapbook press, Sky of Ink Press, has been shortlisted for the Writer's Circle of Durham Region Poetry Chapbook Award. I don't know how many entrants this competition has attracted, but it's open to chapbooks from all over the North America. While most of the fifteen chapbooks on that list come from Ontario, we also see entries from Minneapolis, Min., Lanceford, BC, and Columbus, Ohio. Actually, word should be coming on whether she is among the five finalists very soon!

Nina Bruck on CBC Sunday Edition

Today Nina Bruck was interviewed on the Sunday Edition for 9 minutes about our Sky of Ink chapbook, "Still Light at Five O'Clock". Although the introductory hook was how an 85-year-old had put out her first book, amazingly, it was a very literary broadcast: she got to read four of her poems in their entirety on national radio. Fantastic!

The effect was my site meter lit up with some 30-odd Nina Bruck google inquiries, and we got orders for six books! (NB, as of Wed. June 18, that's 10 books.)

A typical letter:

Heard Nina Bruck on Sunday Edition. Wonderful! Now how do I buy a copy? Tried to respond on blog but got frustrated with the process.

thanks


****

My own question is, did my recent comments on their website have an effect on CBC poetry broadcasting policy? Perhaps... but I'd be surprised. At our urging Nina turned the focus from being some sort of icon of old age creativity (she'd already had that on her TV interview), to the work itself, insisting on the kind of broadcast that came out.

If you want to read more about her book, here's the link for that. A click on the label below will also yield more excerpts of her writing. If anyone wishes to order copies, visit my website and inquire or write me at beedeecee@videotron.ca

SPIRAL


The day my husband left
our G.P. choked on oaths un-Hippocratic.
“If pain persists,” he cried,
“throw his clothes out the window.”
I watched them fly: socks, shorts, shirts –
               every single tie.

The day my husband left
I made myself a dry martini,
missing the cool precision of his lemon peeler –
               its perfect spiral.



--Nina Bruck, Still Light at 5:00

Glitz and Glamour

It was fun being interviewed two nights ago on the CBC about poetry for a change. CBC TV reporter Leah Hendry interviewed both Nina Bruck at her place, and then Raphael and me chez lui. It was rather extraordinary attention given to a poetry chapbook -- but then, as I've said, not everybody puts out their first publication at 84. Leah struck me right away as not only attractive, but warm, personable, and intelligent. My hunch is she'll go places.... Nina told me afterwards that she was "just adorable". Obviously Leah related well to Nina's work, even had her read 3 poems twice for the camera. There was none of the professional cool one might expect of a reporter... She put us at ease by confessing how she had upset her parents by writing dark (ie. extremely dark) poems as a teenager; this put her on "our side", as it were; we talked a bit as the cameraman set up about a young person's need to plunge headlong into that fundamental blackness, to tear away the mask of "optimism" and "good cheer" so much of straight society wears -- but also to seem serious and profound. How as one ages, one is likely to seek more buoyant, playful themes and images, as ones' own energy as well as self-importance declines. Stuff like that. As the camera rolled, she asked us about why we went to the trouble of publishing Nina (we loved her work; and here it was, practically all unpublished, literally sitting in a bank vault somewhere), what we learned from the experience (mainly, how publishing can be an integral part of the creative process; just what made up a poetic identity over the many transmutations of a long lifetime.) There were quite a lot of laughs.

Sadly, but not surprisingly, this being superficial TV, none of Nina's poems made it on air.* This was turned into the final upbeat two-minute item before sign-off, following, I understand, the trite-but-true angle, "even you can publish your first book at 84." But, the cover of the book was shown, it's name mentioned twice -- in other words, quite a piece of promotion, worth at least a few thousand bucks in advertising -- even if not directly aimed at the *buying* demographic we'd want. Generally, though, it got a lot of people thinking about the art of poetry who otherwise wouldn't -- and that's definitely got to be for the good.

Last evening's launch -- and it really was a launch, it turned out, although it was not advertised as such -- was a huge success. The place was packed, the audience attentive and appreciative, and as many as 20 books were sold.

I have yet to see the broadcast and couldn't be at the launch because I teach those evenings. Fortunately, Raphael videoed both, and will be giving me a DVD of the two tomorrow night. I'm quite sure they'll end up on his blog or on YouTube.

*Well, they had her reading one or two lines.

NINA BRUCK: STILL LIGHT AT 5:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sky of Ink Press is proud to announce the release of Still Light At Five O’clock, Nina Bruck’s first book, a selection of 21 poems that span nearly her whole lifetime.

Nina Bruck will be reading from Still Light at Five O’clock

Tues. Nov. 6, 2007
8:00 pm
at
Poetry Plus
Arts Café
201 Fairmount W.
(corner of Esplanade)
Montreal

Ms. Bruck will also be interviewed on the CBC TV News Montreal Arts Report at 6PM, either Monday the 5th or Tues. the 6th.

About the author:
Nina Bruck, born in 1923, is a poet possessed of the quickest intelligence and surest eye. Her lyrics, even at their most profound, are leavened by a playful wit and a warm, easygoing sensuality; many of her poems are pure fun. Ms Bruck’s poetry has appeared in the Canadian Forum, in the Canadian League of Poets Vintage 96 and 97 anthologies, and they’ve been read on CBC radio (Morningside Papers). In 1992, she won First Prize in Matrix Magazine's "New Voices from Quebec" Competition. She also brings her talent as a keen observer to photography. Her colour photographic series “Signs of Life” was featured in a solo exhibition at the McCord Museum in Montreal.

Sky of Ink Press was founded with the express purpose of featuring talented and unpublished poets in finely crafted chapbooks. The poetry editors are Raphael Bendahan and Brian Campbell. E-Mail: camino@primus.ca or (514)-526-3418

For more about the author, the chapbook, & a sample poem click here.

NINA BRUCK: STILL LIGHT AT 5:00

Here's the first chapbook off Sky of Ink Press (photographed outside, propped up on a flowerpot on my balcony -- at 5:00, to be precise, for obvious symbolic reasons & to take advantage of that beautiful waning afternoon light. Click through to see it large -- and caress that card stock with your eyes).

Clearly, its author prefers that her words speak for themselves. Be that as it may, I find it hard to resist tooting a few notes on her behalf.

Several things can be said about this remarkable woman. One is that she’s an extremely talented poet, possessed of a quick intelligence and the surest eye and ear. Even at their most tragic, her lyrics are leavened by a playful wit and warm, easygoing sensuality; many of her poems are pure fun. Here's another: she's written a lot of poems, quite enough to make up at least one or two excellent collections. Everything I've seen by her is good, and much of it, very good. Here's another: up to now, she has hardly published at all -- a handful of appearances in reviews and a League of Poets anthology; one poem was read out on CBC Morningside by Peter Gzowski. In 1992, on a whim, she entered some poems into Matrix Magazine's "New Voices from Quebec" Competition, and emerged with First Prize. She has submitted nothing since. And here's another thing: she was born in 1923. (Yes, she won that "New Voices" prize at the age of 70.)

I first met Nina Bruck at Susan Gillis's "Tiny Sea in the Ear" QWF poetry workshop back in 2004. It was a particularly good workshop, with a lot of capable writers around the table, so a number of us continued on afterwards, meeting on an informal basis about once a month for a couple of years. It always struck us as odd that Nina had never really published; indeed, once we grasped her depth of talent, it became deeply frustrating. Finally, my friend Raphael Bendahan and I prevailed upon her to produce at least a chapbook before she departs. By this point, we had clearly demonstrated how well we related to her work, and gained her trust as editors. So one fateful Saturday early last January, before any final qualms or "cold feet" could take over, Raphael and I stormed her apartment (on invitation of course), and with her fished out of her voluminous papers -- she had taken them out of her drawers and they covered her table, bureau, desk, in huge, disorganized stacks --twenty-one poems worthy of a fine chapbook and banged them into my laptop on the spot (before they flew away, so it felt). It took between 2:30 and 10 pm, with a break for supper. What fun! At that pace, we expected it to be out in a matter of weeks, but what with life's interventions, differences on how to order the poems, time required to refine a few lines, copy-editing corrections and re-corrections, all the usual (and some unusual) finicky details, it took the full nine months required to have a normal real baby. And now that it's finally out, it feels good to hold this little poem-being and flip once again through its contents.

To give you some taste of what I'm praising, here's a prose poem, the only one in the selection:

THE HEINTZMAN -- 1933

The day they repossessed my mother's baby grand I heard them leave, scaring the canary. The house forgot to breathe, then the fridge began, louder than ever. The walnut bench still stood, crammed with a thick Scarlatti in a yellow jacket and the sheet music from Rose Marie. I was supposed to be their own Yehudi Munuhin someday or failing that, to simply "play for your own comfort." Anyway there we were, the empty space filling the room. I knew they expected me to cry but I was mad, at the canary, its small bones, its timid knees, its inability to make a sound.


Some publishing details: Printed in an edition of 100 copies on high-quality cream-coloured paper with a cardstock light grey cover, Still Light at 5:00 is 25 pages long and contains 21 poems. The dimensions of the chapbook are, we think, typical of Sky of Ink Press productions to come: 8 1/2" by 7", that is, legal sized paper folded in half. Although this size can be inconvenient because of limited range and availability of quality paper stock, we like it because, compared to the typical folded 8.5x11 chapbook format, it leaves lots of room for a poem to breathe: longish lines aren't squeezed at the margins and there is no problem sticking to a decent-sized font.

Still Light at 5:00 is available for $10 Canadian or American including postage -- or an interesting trade. Just write to me via my website.

For more on Nina Bruck, click on the label below.