What is a chapbook, for pity's sake? I keep coming across the word. Sounds downright painful to me.

:o

also known as a pamphlet...

Some background on Chapbooks
chapbook, n -- a book of popular ballads, stories etc, formerly sold by chapmen

chapman, n, pl chapmen -- (archaic) a trader, especially itinerant

From the Old English ceapman, and connected with ceap -- barter, bargain, price, property.

So chapbooks traditionally present accessible content at a cost that won't break you.

taken from http://www.happenstancepress.com/Chapbooks.htm

Poets On Fire. The forum where you never know what amazing fact you're about to discover about the world of poetry ... until you discover it. Good show, Derek.

:D

Chapbooks are much more popular in the US than they are here; it is expected over there that poets will publish a chapbook (usually by winning a contest) before a full collection.

Ah, Petits Livres - I prefer "pamphlets" because it sounds more urgent, more loose-leaf and ephemeral, and you can say "pamphleteering" which sounds like a vital activity...

Sorry, I have only just realised that I did not reply to your help on this query. Thank you all, I did have an inkling of what chapbooks were, but this has cleared the matter up for me. Edmund, I too prefer 'pamphlets' - more political in essence, perhaps, like the radical pamphlets of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

But is poetry that relevant or politically aware anymore? Or am I stirring up a hornets' nest by asking such a loaded question?