Lee Rourke on the joys of the chapbook:
Over the bank holiday weekend, I spent many an hour reading the diverse collection of poetry chapbooks Blackheath Books had recently sent me.
The first thing I did before reading them, was marvel at the sheer beauty of these things. The feel of them, the texture and quality is just right. Each Blackheath chapbook is handmade and “printed on 100% recycled paper and card containing a high percentage of post-consumer waste”, according to the inside front cover. If you want to get an idea of how much love and attention goes into producing each chapbook, just watch this wonderful short video of a batch in production at Blackheath Books’ workshop in Pembrokeshire.
It isn’t all that surprising chapbooks are still popular today as they have been around for a rather long time. Records a mere click away report the earliest known chapbooks dating from as far back as 1553. In the days when daily newspapers were a luxury for the elite, handmade chapbooks – from collections of bawdy verse to general everyday news – served as the only communicative device for the general public to rely upon.
Literature as we know it, in terms of its underground distribution, just couldn’t have survived without the original ‘chapmen’ who peddled issues from village to village, it seems, so culturally indebted to them are we and important their history is. The samizdats of Russia, the poetry chapbooks of Budapest and Prague, the Dadaist manifestos, the counter-culture publications of the ’60s and the Punk era’s cut-and-paste ferocity of Sniffin’ Glue all spring to mind. Amazingly, it seems that even the most internet savvy of young writers are publishing their own chapbooks today, with some interesting titles, for example: I Will Unfold You With My Hairy Hands by Shane Jones, Paul Simon by Chris Killen, The Name Of This Band Is The Talking Heads Vol. 1 by Zachary German.
Further: Kendra Malone reviews a number of recent chapbooks / Ben Myers talks Blackheath’sSpam
