The Poetry Center Chapbook Exchange is a community-curated archive I created and developed for poets to convene, correspond, and collaborate via the currency of the poetry community: chapbooks. The model for the chapbook exchange was catalyzed by the need to invigorate poetry collections in public libraries and was expanded to include extant poetry communities. As a cooperatively-curated project, we have facilitated the compilation of a diverse and innovative collection of poetry chapbooks for public access. We began by inviting a select group of core contributors, and have grown our collection in just a few months to comprise 30+ chapbooks freely available on the web.
The site currently features chapbooks from over 50 contributors, including Aja Couchois Duncan, Alli Warren, Andrea Rexilius, Becca Klaver, Caroline Goodwin, Carrie Hunter, Christina Lloyd, Donna de la Perriere, Evan Karp, Eve Wood, Frances Richard, Gemma McGrath, Jennifer Firestone, Jess Heaney, Jessica Smith, Kristy Bowen, Lara Durback, Mary Burger, Maureen Thorson, Maw Shein Win, Maya Weeks, Melissa Eleftherion, Michelle Detorie, Patrick Dunagan, Steve Gilmartin, Stephen Ratcliffe, Jared White, and Trevor Calvert.
We continue to welcome new contributors, and invite you to participate in our community-curated collection. Contact melissa dot eleftherion dot gmail dot com if you’d like to participate in our chapbook exchange, or gain access to the collection as a researcher.
You can read more about the Poetry Center Chapbook Exchange on the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet blog, as well at The Tishman Review. I’ve also posted two papers I presented at AWP 2013 & 2014 on my blog, one of which was published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship.
A Poet Librarian 