The Small Presses and Why We Love Them:

Prick of the Spindle Editors Survey the Small Press Chapbook Scene

"The terms small press, indie publisher, and independent press are often used interchangeably, with "independent press" defined as publishers that are not part of large conglomerates or multinational corporations. Defined this way, these presses make up approximately half of the market share of the book publishing industry. Many small presses rely on specialization in genre fiction, poetry, or limited-edition books or magazines, but there are also thousands that focus on niche non-fiction markets."

-thanks, Wikipedia...

Prick of the Spindle's latest survey of offerings from the little presses includes:

* Figures for a Darkroom Voice by Noah Eli Gordon and Joshua Marie Wilkinson
* Shell Games by Noel Sloboda
* Not a Speck of Light is Showing by Barry Graham
* For All These Wretched, Beautiful, & Insignificant Things So Uselessly & Carelessly Destroyed...
   by Hosho McCreesh
* Tomorrowland by Howie Good
* Resurrection of the Dust by John McKernan
* Nothing Unrequited Here by Heather Bell
* Swimming Back by Taylor Altman
* The Zen of Chainsaws and Enormous Clippers by Drew Kalbach
* Only the Dead Know Albany by Alan Catlin
* Tatterdemalion by Ray Succre


See below for sneak peeks and links to full reviews:

From Tarpaulin Sky Press . . .
Figures for a Darkroom Voice by Noah Eli Gordon and Joshua Marie Wilkinson
Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2007
Reviewed by Christopher Vera

Figures for a Darkroom Voice is a sometimes difficult and sometimes brilliant collection of poetry. Several of the pieces have a photographic theme or element to them that fit the title perfectly. The poets have a very still-frame way of looking at—and describing—their world. [read more]

New from Sunnyoutside Press . . .
Shell Games by Noel Sloboda
Sunnyoutside Press, 2008
Reviewed by Eric Weinstein

Sloboda’s poems are a bit of an enigma; not unlike those of Collins or Kooser, they make use of simple language to deliver surprisingly intricate and profound treatments of everyday existence. They are not quite nature poems, although “Shell Games,” “Winter of the Campaign,” “Fallen,” and several others have a distinctly rural sensibility... [read more]

New from the Achilles Chapbook Series . . .
Not a Speck of Light is Showing by Barry Graham
Paper Hero Press, Achilles Chapbook Series, October 2008
Reviewed by Cynthia Reeser

With the entirety of Gene Wilder’s infamous Willy Wonka monologue (think psychedelic tunnel scene) prefacing Barry Graham’s recent publication, Not a Speck of Light is Showing, you know you’d better pay attention. As an opening to this collection of flash fiction, the verse paves the way for... [read more]

New from Sunnyoutside Press . . .
For All These Wretched, Beautiful, & Insignificant Things So Uselessly & Carelessly Destroyed...
by Hosho McCreesh
Sunnyoutside Press, 2008
Reviewed by Eric Weinstein

McCreesh’s poems are a struggle in more ways than one. We can certainly appreciate their taking on the broadest and most metaphysically significant questions of human existence—why we are here, the nature of pain, the secret truths behind life and death—but they quickly collapse under this weight, laboring to elucidate grander truths than those of which they are capable. [read more]

New from the Achilles Chapbook Series . . .
Tomorrowland by Howie Good
Paper Hero Press, Achilles Chapbook Series, December 2008
Reviewed by Cynthia Reeser

Howie Good is the author of six poetry chapbooks, including, most recently, the e-book, Police and Questions from Right Hand Pointing. Tomorrowland is the December 2008 publication from the Achilles Chapbook Series, fostered by Dogzplot. As with the bulk of his poetry, the work in Tomorrowland resonates with startling lines that hook you... [read more]

From The Backwaters Press . . .
Resurrection of the Dust by John McKernan
The Backwaters Press, 2007
Reviewed by Christopher Vera

In Resurrection of the Dust, John McKernan demonstrates a talent for dark, sometimes humorous, often macabre poetry in this perfect-bound soft-cover collection of 172 poems. McKernan has a wonderful knack for seeing things in ways the reader might not have thought of, or better still, of things to which perhaps we had never given a passing thought... [read more]

New from Verve Bath Press . . .
Nothing Unrequited Here by Heather Bell
Verve Bath Press, 2008
Reviewed by Cynthia Reeser

A delicately-designed book from Verve Bath Press, Heather Bell’s Nothing Unrequited Here contains works to which equal attention has been devoted to craft. Bell’s poems evoke the alternate universe created by lovers, whether together or apart... [read more]

New from Sunnyoutside Press . . .
Swimming Back by Taylor Altman
Sunnyoutside Press, 2008
Reviewed by Eric Weinstein

Swimming Back is haunted—by a lost father, a vanished childhood, and the histories of the objects that remind us of them. Things swept away, both by water and by the passage of time, are central to Altman’s work. This theme emerges in the first poem in the collection... [read more]

New from The Achilles Chapbook Series . . .
The Zen of Chainsaws and Enormous Clippers by Drew Kalbach
Paper Hero Press, Achilles Chapbook Series, October 2008
Reviewed by Cynthia Reeser

In prose that is both meandering and deceptively simple, Drew Kalbach’s chapbook The Zen of Chainsaws and Enormous Clippers, stakes out its territory. The images contained within this collection of prose poems can seem incohesive, but it doesn’t take long to realize that the totality of the effect is what is so intriguing. [read more]

New from Sunnyoutside Press . . .
Only the Dead Know Albany by Alan Catlin
Sunnyoutside Press, 2008
Reviewed by Christopher Vera

Judging from Alan Catlin’s new poetry chapbook there’s an unreported infestation of living dead shambling and groaning their way through Albany, New York. Only the Dead Know Albany is a collection of 20 poems in a clean saddle-stapled chapbook that describes Catlin’s experience working in and moving through the seedier sides of town along its back streets... [read more]

New from Cauliay Publishing . . .
Tatterdemalion by Ray Succre
Cauliay Publishing, 2008
Reviewed by Erin McKnight

Tatterdemalion isn’t as much one man’s personal account of a descent into isolating madness as it is his exploration of the space that remains once relatives are plucked from his life. Leading readers into the bizarre, yet not altogether unbelievable terra incognita of a mind robbed, the narrator does so with an unceasing spirit of humility and hope. [read more]

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