Chapbooks that make you laugh at the dark. BAMBOO DART Press reinvents the Chapbook with PELEKINESIS. Review LIFE, Orange to Pear, The Loss Detector, Five Ghost Stories
What is a Chapbook? I always thought of it as poetry, printed on vellum with letterpress and largely undistributed beyond poetry community. According to Wikipedia: " A chapbook is a small publication of up to about 40 pages, sometimes bound with a saddle stitch. In early modern Europe a chapbook was a type of printed street literature." These prose chapbooks by BAMBOO DART PRESS may be a 2021 version of "street literature". Attractive to hold in your hand, around 45 pages, they offer a meaningful, even inspiring read. But can these books be long enough to deliver that experience? In these disconnected days of isolation, I enjoyed the humor and wonder in these books. Books and Tapes and Art and a series of chapbooks, a collaboration between Pelekinesis and Shrimper Records and Tapes. John Brantingham is a poet, novelist, essayist and foremost in this book, a man who remembers being a kid and profound moments, like peeling an orang...