mjp
Founding member
A package arrived today with three recent Chance Press titles. What's interesting is how different they all are, yet you can feel that they are from the same press (without looking at the colophon pages, smart ass!).
I first started buying poetry chapbooks in the early 90s, and I can tell you that there was nothing like this out there at that time. Everything seemed to be done as cheaply as possible with little or no aesthetic sensibility, which always struck me as odd, seeing as this is supposed to be a creative endeavor, right?
I don't usually fawn over things that our members bring out because I don't want it to look like anyone is getting any kind of special treatment (and because an endorsement from me might not necessarily be the best thing one could hope for). But jesus christ, there's something about these three books as a group that is just damn compelling. They span a wide range of interests: Joan Jobe Smith nails down the Hollywood that exists only in memory in Sequin Soul, the Abbigail McCracken book nails down an absurdity that I will always appreciate in Acontextual Drawings. and the ethereal, graphic novel(ette?) pages of Stiff Breeze by Barry Lutz put an exclamation point on the whole weird, marvelous thing.
Bill does the same thing, but I guess I've never received three diverse titles from him at the same time before, and David Barker's ghost is also a marvel of the power of creative production...and many other recent publications too. I don't want to leave anyone out (I'm looking at you, Purple Glow Press and MILK).
This is some god damn place, I'll tell you what. I'm glad we're all here at the same time breathing the same air and walking around made up of the same ancient particles.
I first started buying poetry chapbooks in the early 90s, and I can tell you that there was nothing like this out there at that time. Everything seemed to be done as cheaply as possible with little or no aesthetic sensibility, which always struck me as odd, seeing as this is supposed to be a creative endeavor, right?
I don't usually fawn over things that our members bring out because I don't want it to look like anyone is getting any kind of special treatment (and because an endorsement from me might not necessarily be the best thing one could hope for). But jesus christ, there's something about these three books as a group that is just damn compelling. They span a wide range of interests: Joan Jobe Smith nails down the Hollywood that exists only in memory in Sequin Soul, the Abbigail McCracken book nails down an absurdity that I will always appreciate in Acontextual Drawings. and the ethereal, graphic novel(ette?) pages of Stiff Breeze by Barry Lutz put an exclamation point on the whole weird, marvelous thing.
Bill does the same thing, but I guess I've never received three diverse titles from him at the same time before, and David Barker's ghost is also a marvel of the power of creative production...and many other recent publications too. I don't want to leave anyone out (I'm looking at you, Purple Glow Press and MILK).
This is some god damn place, I'll tell you what. I'm glad we're all here at the same time breathing the same air and walking around made up of the same ancient particles.