ON DISTILLATION

There is a poet I respect very much who had, at the time I encountered her work, published a handful of successful chapbooks but no full-length collections. The colleague who introduced me to her poetry told me that the poet believed she might just be a "chapbook poet," and that was fine by her. 

Of course, since then, said poet has gone on to win an award for her first full-length book. As well she should. But the idea of being a "chapbook poet" is one that struck me and has proved a balm in the sea of rejections I have received for full-length contests that are lamentably fueled by the academic pipeline, industry connections, and classism.

(While I claimed an MFA from an established program, I was [and still am] reeling from an abusive power dynamic with a professor as an undergraduate. As a result, I had difficulty creating relationships with my MFA instructors, most of whom do not remember me [as I learned when requesting blurbs for my first chapbook]. I never networked and on top of the loans that will follow me to my deathbed, I have been bleeding myself dry attempting to get the attention of major publishers.)

The winnowing went further when I was working on a collection of found poems from a 1980s textbook on bone fractures. I had nine poems which had taken an inordinate amount of planning and editing to remain true to the original text. I was tapped out. What else was there to say in this particular manner, in this particular medium? 

Ghost City Press published that micro-chapbook in 2019 as a part of their Summer Series. That publication spurred a revelation: my project had run its course and that was not a problem. I need not force anything past the constraints that I set for myself. I had exactly nine poems and that was enough. The collection was complete in the eyes of others, not only through my own lens.

Working as a poetry editor with MAYDAY as we launched the micro-chapbook contest further solidified my belief in the value of concentration. We received so many tight, intentional manuscripts and our conversations about their merits were far more involved than I could have anticipated for collections so short. Reading them was an experience unlike any other I had had with poetry: I wanted no more, no less; I was able to live fully inside something that was neat and whole and eagle-eyed; I could experience it all in one sitting and yet it fermented with time, drawing me naturally back to the text for multiple reads; prosodic, syntactical, and imagistic nuances were profound in their distillation.

The micro-chapbook encourages true consideration of each piece’s necessity, acts as internal prompt through thematic intention, provides a cohesive reading experience, has the potential to demystify the genre for those who may not yet know that they are readers of poetry, and offers an alternative to the costly, contest-driven, and saturated full-length industry.

There is value in stopping when we feel the need to stop, in creating something inarguably cohesive with pieces that build upon or inform one another in a way that is thematically evident and not at all belabored. I wanted a place for that, wanted a press whose intention was to make these complicated and digestible collections and their authors the absolute center of its mission. 

Welcome to Whittle Micro-Press.

Cull your darlings.

Send them our way. 

-Katherine