Chapbook Workshop

On Monday morning, Sandra Alland and I taught a Chapbook Workshop to a group of about fifteen 18-20 year old "at-risk youth" (whatever that label means) at the City Adult Learning Centre. We were the guest "experts" in Chris Kubsch's Writers' Craft English class, and the students' final assignment was to produce a chapbook of their writing from the term.

We discussed a bit about the history of chapbooks, current chapbook publishers, and a great deal of technical tips about layout and printing. I managed to find the very first poetry chapbook I'd ever made, in the mid-90s in Bob Casto's poetry workshop at York. It was called "Climbing Parentheses" and contained lots of sex and swearing, as well as Tristan Tzara quotations, and poems comprised solely of punctuation. It was an ugly little book, coil-bound and full of errors, and I utilized it as an example of what not to do: blank pages everywhere, words cut off by binding, bad margins, and a bland aesthetic. I wouldn't let Sandra read any of the poems either, too embarrassing.

We brought in a wide array of sample chapbooks, both of our own projects, and works by Proper Tales Press, Pas de Chance, Black Bile Press, 2x4 to the forehead, Puddle Press, housepress, among many others. The goal was to illustrate to the students that the possibilities of form were almost limitless, and certainly not restricted to black and white photocopied and stapled booklets.

In the latter half of the workshop, it was hands-on time, and the students used the materials we brought in to create the covers and binding for their chapbooks. Some students got more involved in the process than others, which is to be expected, but some of their covers were amazing! There were a few elaborate collages, as well as lots of questions about layout and what they should put in their author bios.

Chris is going to try to send us pictures of their finished projects.

I love doing these workshops, especially with teens. The adults are not always as willing to play with the materials and get their hands dirty, but the teenagers can get really into it, which is very cool and inspiring.

Cheers.

TEENLAND by Northern Pikes