We're pleased to announce the first Puddles of Sky publication of 2021! Puddles of Sky Postcard #11: "From the series 'People Fallen Over in an Architectural Model for a New Mall' by Mark Laba.

Postcards are $1.50 plus shipping. But if you order Mark's 2017 chapbook Tusk-a-Loose'a you'll get one free.

And since we're bundling up postcards and chapbooks, if you order a copy of MA|DE's A Barely Concealed Design, you'll get Postcard #5 by Mark Laliberte (the MA part of MA|DE).

See Below for more Details!

Recently I organized my office and print space. It was long overdue. We've been in our new house for over 2 years now, and I'd never really set up my office. The filing and organizing took a full week, due, in part, to also organizing my boxes of Puddles of Sky chapbooks.

I discovered a bunch of older stock that I'd love to get out into the world. I've decided to bundle up some chapbooks into different categories. If you order one of these bundles I guarantee you'll be getting a good deal, and I'll likely toss a few extras in too.

Some of these bundles are very limited. Once they're gone the link will be removed from this post.

See the CHAPBOOKS page for more info on specific titles.

Shipping will be a flat rate of $3.00-- some of these bundles are going to be pretty hefty when I ship them out, so these bundles are only available for shipment in Canada.

If you've got an idea of some titles you'd like bundled together, shoot me an email. I'll see what I can do!

A Few of the bundles have already sold out. See below to find out what is still available!

Includes:

The Magistrate's Glass Figures
& Other Tales      By Katherine Romba

Hallelujah by Christine Miscione

2 Chapters Toward and Epic by Michael e. Casteels

Includes:

Tusk-a-Loose'a by Mark Laba

Nice Haircut, Fiddlehead by Stuart Ross

Ask by Lillian Necakov

Lagoon. Still Lagoon. by Michael e. Casteels

Includes:

illiterature. issue 8 (a journal of rubber stamped poetry)

illiterature issue 8 & a 1/2 (a journal of minimalist rubber stamped poetry)

2 leaf poems by Michael e. Casteels

August 11th (postcard #10) by Jason Heroux

Includes:

illiterature. issue 4.

Chicken Scratch by David Alexander

To my Beloved Puppy by Brady Kumpf

Chore Choir by Alice Burdick

What it Satisifes by Dale Tracy

Very Uncomfortable by Nick Papaxanthos

DuD by Michael e. Casteels

I've been wickedly slow at updating the Puddles of Sky pages this year. It seems like my last posts were in January or February. It's hard to believe how quickly the year slips away.

I did have a busy year with the press though, which included new titles in the spring and a few titles hot of the press this fall. I've updated the CHAPBOOKS page with information and ordering options.

My computer has been on the fritz for most of the year... it spent about 3 or 4 months in the shop, and I'm still having issues with it. As a result, I've focused entirely on hand-stamped publications this year. See a few pictures below, and see the Chapbooks page for more.

I've already got a few projects lined up for 2020, and I'm planning on updating the site more regularly, so check back in and see what I get up to!

Our first publication of 2019 is Puddles of Sky Postcard #2, General View, a collage by Michael e. Casteels. Our goal is to publish a postcard each month for the entire year. We've already got February's lined up, and a few others coming down the line.

Postcards can be purchased individually, or you can pre-order for the year. Every month, you'll receive a postcard in the mail.

Individually, postcards are $2.00 + $1.50 (shipping)
The set is $35.00, which includes shipping.

Check out the Chapoems & Postcards page to order

ALSO! General View is being sent out free with any orders of $12.00 or more.

It's mid-January. Well, it's past the mid-point now. No one says, "Happy New Year" anymore. But here it is for you, because you're reading this: Happy New Year!

I've got a pile of Puddles of Sky projects lined for 2019, but before I get into them I've got to finish up with one of the projects I started in 2018. My late-fall and early winter was a blur of chapbook fairs, poetry readings, and then the whirlwind of Christmas... so just getting to this now.

"The Clot Thickens" is chapbook of one-line poems by William A. Davison. I first came across William's poetry in Mercury Press's 'Surreal Estate' edited by Stuart Ross. William's poems really stood out for me. There's an energy of creation that radiates from each one. I feel like each poem is being written while I read it. In the afterword William explained his use of automatic writing, and how he published every poem without a single edit. I thought that was bold, and intriguing. It explained some of that energy that I felt from his work. I especially liked his one-line poems, for the fact that many of them could create amazing shifts and changes, that many poems need 14 or more lines to do. So I tracked William down and asked it he'd like to work on a chapbook of one-line poems. "The Clot Thickens" is the result.

This book took a lot of work to produce. I knew when I started that I wanted a chapbook in which none of the lines need to be broken. The longest poem stretches nearly 11 inches. I knew it also needed to be a short book (in terms of height) because I didn't want too much white space. This meant that each 8.5 by 11 page needed to be cut 7 times. I'm not very good at math, but let's just say, there was a lot of cutting involved.

The stamping of the cover was simple enough. I knew I wanted the title to be in red, an obvious connection to the clot thickening.

The binding was also pretty time consuming. I knew I couldn't staple the binding, as it would have been too tacky, and because there was no folded spine, a Japanese binding was the only option. The one I decided on is something I came up with on my own. I'm really happy with it.

This is a great collection of poems. Surreal, funny, mind-expanding, and thought-provoking. The book itself is a little unwieldy, but I think it makes a great house for these poems.

THE CLOT THICKENS can be purchased HERE

In February I received a homemade postcard from Gustave Morin. He was writing for confirmation that I was still living in the same place, and to see if I was interested in looking over a manuscript for possible publication. He included his email address on the postcard and I wrote him back telling him that I'd received his postcard and, yes, I'd love to see a manuscript.

Fast Forward a few weeks and I received a hefty package in the mail. Part of its heft was the submission itself: nearly thirty 8.5 by 11 sheets. The package's additional heft was the result of a 6 page typewritten cover letter. It was still February at this point, so I brewed a coffee, and sat down by the fireplace to look through the submission, and to read through the letter.

Whereas most cover letters (even the ones I send out to publishers) are cut & paste jobs that could be printed off twenty times and sent to twenty different journals...(Dear editor, please find enclosed my submission to your journal. I have read previous issues and I believe my work would make a good fit. Thank you in advance for your consideration...etc.)  Gustave's was a real letter. I felt like his letter opened up a doorway into a small section of his life. I learned about his day-to-day, his likes and dislikes, his favorite movies and books. I learned about this kitchen cabinets in need of repair. I learned about his family, his wife and their daughter. I learned about some of the processes he used to create his work. By the end of his letter, I felt like we friends.

I worked through his submission. Selected the pieces I like the most, the ones I thought would make for a diverse, yet contained chapbook of visual poetry. I made scans and copies of all the pieces I wanted to use, and then pulled out my own typewriter. I set out to match Gustave's six page letter, but only made it to page five. I don't remember exactly how long it took, but I was punching the keys for a while. I'd typed poems before. A few short letters. But this was definitely the longest continued piece I'd typed, and just in that time, I felt like I learned a lot about the machine.

I put it all together and shipped it off to Gustave. Then waited. This process definitely took longer than other chapbooks projects in which all of the correspondence happens via email, and I can connect with an author in a matter of minutes. A week or so later I received another postcard, and then a week after that, another package, which included another 6 page letter.... ABANDON G*DSPEAK was coming together.

ABANDON GODSPEAK features 11 visual poems. Some are collages. Some are typewriter poems.Some utilize rubber stamps. And some use a combination of these techniques. I've been a big fan of Gustave's work for a few years now, and I'm thrilled to that he now has a chapbook through Puddles of Sky Press.

Throughout the project we connected once or twice through the internet, but everything else was done through letters and Canada Post. It made for a slow, but thoughtful experience. In fact, I still owe Gustave another letter. Time to pull out the typewriter and get that bell dinging.

ABANDON G*DSPEAK is being sold for $5.00 + Shipping and can be found on our CHAPBOOKS page.

All one hundred copies of illiterature. issue eight. a journal of rubber-stamped poems are now assembled and being sent out into the world.

issue eight. is essentially 11 rubber-stamped publications gathered into a card stock envelope. It continues some of my recent publishing endeavors of fusing a poem with its published form.

My initial idea in putting this collection together was to print two or three poems, and put them into a small envelope and that would be it. But as I read through my 'Off Cuts & Loose Ends' submissions, I found a bunch of poems that seemed to work well with the idea. Once I'd printed the fourth publication, I realized that this project was becoming the eighth issue of illiterature., which was perfect, because at that point I'd been brainstorming some ideas for issue eight, but none of them seemed to stick.

Each of the eleven poems in this collection could have very easily been published as their own, separate piece, but when gathered together they connect and overlap in interesting ways.

illiterature. issue eight. a journal of rubber-stamped poems. includes work from:

Conor Barnes
Gabriel Bates
Michael e. Casteels
Conyer Clayton
Robin Wyatt Dunn
LeRoy Gorman
Kevin Heslop
Zane Koss
Ben Robinson
Kate Siklosi
Robert R. Thurman

The journal is being sold for $12.00 + Shipping & can be purchased on our CHAPBOOKS page.

Brady Kumpf is turning 14 this weekend, and I've just had the honor of publishing his first chapbook, To My Beloved Puppy.

I first heard about Brady's work through a facebook post that his sister, Ally Fleming, shared. She was thrilled to see her younger brother writing poetry. After reading through a few of his verses, I was thrilled too.

To My Beloved Puppy is an eight-verse poem, that is sweet, funny, poignant, and sad. The tone shifts from formal to playful, and back again within a single verse.

Here's a an example from the second verse:

As both a poetry lover and dog lover, this chapbook was a real joy to work on. I'm proud to have published the first chapbook of a fine, young writer. I'm excited to see what he does next.

To My Beloved Puppy is only  $3.50 + shipping, and can be purchased on our CHAPBOOKS PAGE.