I spent the last two days selling books at the Chapbook Festival held at CUNY, and had a blast. So many poets and writers interested in the crafting of these small, intimate objects of varying sizes and shapes and textures. I have a book from the Flying Guillotine Press with gauze webbing hanging from the edges. Lots of saddle-stitched and stapled books, some perfect bound (like mine), and others bound in the most imaginative ways (I’m thinking of Small Fires Press’ matchbooks). I sat next to Robert Snyderman of The Corresponding Society and Kate Angus of Augury Books and had a great time talking with them. Because the event was so small, roughly 50 independent houses, I was able to walk around and speak to most of the other vendors, and was pleased to make some new friends from my fellow bookmakers. I also enjoyed talking to people about the future of ebook technology, and what that may mean for chapbooks.

I also did a bit of swapping and shopping. Here’s what I picked up:

The Blacksmith by Robert Snyderman (The Corresponding Society)
Leaving the Atocha Station (IHP Pamphlet #3) by Ben Lerner (The Physiocrats)
Abu Ghraib Arias by Philip Metres (Flying Guillotine Press)
To Mend Small Children by B.C. Edwards (Augury Books)
Mass of the Phoenix by David Brazil (Trafficker Press)
Fossil by BJ Love, Friedrich Kerksieck, & Cherie Weaver (Dusie Kollektiv)
Beauty Was the Case that They Gave Me by Mark Leidner (Factory Hollow Press)
Parents by Farrah Field (Immaculate Disciples Press)
Szent Laszlo Hotel by G.C. Waldrep (Projective Industries)
Wichman Cometh by Ben Pease (Monk Books)
Deformation Zone by Johannes Goransson & Joyelle McSweeney (UDP)
Matchbook Volume #3 (Small Fires Press)
Evelyn Evelyn Evelyn Ballard by Brian McDonald (Charlton Publication)
The Sea in Me by Popahna Brandes (The Corresponding Society)
Into by Christopher Sweeny, Robert Snyderman, Lonely Christopher (TCS)
Why I Like Chapbooks by James Haug (Factory Hollow Press)
Badger, Apocrypha by Adam Day (The Poetry Society of America)
In Search of Mariachis by David Shumate (Epiphany Editions)
Talking Doll by J. Hope Stein (Dancing Girl Press)
Goat in the Snow by Emily Pettit (Birds, LLC)
List by Deb Olin Unferth (New Herring Press)
31 Poems by Dean Young (Forklift, Ink.)

Can’t wait to do it again next year. A special thanks to Sampson Starkweather, who put together the book fair and who is awesome.