Is There a Chapbook Somewhere in Your Cabinet of Curiosities?

By: Emilie Lindemann

How It Started

Before I even knew about chapbooks, I discovered something called an EP, a mini album featuring three to six songs. It was 2001 or 2002, and I listened to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ self-titled EP on my neon-pink discman as I jogged the sidewalks of my suburban neighborhood. An awkward teenager, I suddenly felt confident and inspired as I scream-sang along with Karen O’s lyrics in my mind. There was something so badass, so rebellious about that EP with its pink bunny design on the disc. Part of it was that the EP wasn’t a traditional album. It was short and impactful.

A few years later, as a grad student in Milwaukee, I would be introduced to chapbooks. And like that Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ EP, there’s something so delightfully transgressive about a brief yet focused poetry chapbook (a shorter book of usually ten to forty pages). Due to their brevity, chapbooks allow for an exquisitely focused narrative or emotional experience. Chapbooks are a whirlwind daytrip that you’ll never forget or a deep dive into a niche topic.

Some of My Favorites

To Find a Rainbow by Phyllis Walsh (Hummingbird Press, 1997) has been my go-to book for coping with life’s anxious moments. The palm-sized chapbook is covered in a slate blue transparent paper and features drawings by David Kopitzke. Kind of hard to feel anxious with poems like “icy April night/ i see my ah-breath rising/ toward the comet.”

The Sea by Victoria Coccaro, translated by Rebekah Smith (DoubleCross Press, 2024) is actually bound with a second chapbook, A Fortnight by Lindsay Turner—also wonderful. Coccaro’s line breaks and meditative tone pull us in right from the first lines: “one life/ sleeps/ slowly/ falling further behind the scene that arises/ now that I’m writing.”

Sand Island Succession: Poems of the Apostles by Judith Strasser (Parallel Press, 2002) called out to me for its focus on the writer’s experience as a poet-in-residence on the northern Wisconsin islands that I’ve only ever dreamed of visiting. Full of personal narrative, history, and the experience of acquiring “island eyes.”

Exploring Your Own Ideas for a Chapbook

What are you curious about lately? And could this recent interest be the start of your next chapbook? Here’s a prompt to help you embrace those niche interests: Draw a grid with about nine to twelve squares. Think of it as your own cabinet of curiosities right here on your notebook page. Instead of filling it with small treasures—geodes, a green plastic pear earring without its other half, beach glass, a hand-written Post-it from your aunt—fill it with topics you are curious about. Time travel, aging, secret worlds, the woods, thrift stores, Pyrex collections.

Could any of these passions or curiosities be connected? Could two or even three of these topics intersect in any way?

With a topic or an intersection of topics in mind, brainstorm poems that could be part of this series. Taking my “secret worlds” idea from above, your list might include hiding spots from childhood, cafes that no longer exist, imaginary portals in the woods, etc. Start by writing a poem inspired by the word or phrase from your curiosity cabinet. Then, see what happens next. Does a second poem in a series suggest itself to you? What about another version of this poem, from a different angle?

What I love most about chapbooks is the way they encourage us to ruminate on a topic, event, or journey and explore it from all angles. With their already unconventional container, chapbooks seem to encourage gutsy focus and experimentation.

Emilie Lindemann is the author of Ghost(ed) Woman & the Electric Purple Pants, a poetry chapbook from Fresh Water Press.