I really enjoyed the Chapbook Festival! I didn’t really know what to expect, and it surprised me to see such a large room filled with tables of chapbooks! It was like a Mecca for poets! I attended the event with my boyfriend’s Step-mom who after hearing I was making a chapbook, confided in me that she too, had a chapbook of her own. It has kind of been a bonding experience for us? Anyway, she bought something close to 20 chapbooks and I am looking forward to “borrowing” them for some summer reading!
I found it really interesting how dynamic a chapbook can be. I was only really accustomed to the stereotypical chapbook (printer paper folded in half and stapled). It was very enlightening to see all of the possibilities out there. Chapbooks can be an art all on their own! The one’s with color, texture, and interesting shape/size stood out to me the most.
I attended the first part of the marathon reading. I stayed for 3 poets (Jill included) and really loved two of them! Jill was amazing, as I’m sure everyone could have predicted! My boyfriend’s step-mom bought Jill’s Poetry Barn Barn and is raving about it! Whoo go Jill! The first poet was what I’d like to refer to as “blah-central”. Meaning, she stunk. I just didn’t like her poetry style, and she no reading/performance capabilities. The second poet was awesome! She wrote a very powerful poem about the relationship between Haitians who live in the Bahamas and the Bahamians (is that right?). Anyway, she participated in what sounded like a really cool project pairing a visual artist with a poet. All participants had to create work about a specific theme, which had something to do with the destruction of Haiti/pain? I can’t quite put the right words to it but the theme was determined eerily 2 weeks prior to the earthquake.
Overall, this was a great experience. Very helpful for me in terms of ideas for my own chapbook!
