Mitchell post ghost press

post ghost press

Reviewed by Amy Mitchell

Before I opened the small envelope containing post ghost press’s microchapbooks, I wasn’t sure what I would think of such tiny microchaps. They seem like the very definition of ephemera—very small and very easy to lose, spill something on, accidentally recycle, etc. And yet, I very quickly became a serious fan of post ghost press’s productions—these microchaps are a delight to handle and a uniquely engaging reading experience. They are also clearly made with care and love.

I corresponded via email with Dessa Bayrock, the publisher of post ghost press (and an excellent poet in her own right!), asking her questions about her reasons behind starting the press and her experiences so far. I’ll incorporate some of her responses in this review, since they shed very useful light on this project:

What inspired you to start post ghost press and to focus on microchapbooks?

The idea for this press really germinated after I visited Shelf Life Books in Calgary while visiting my parents in 2016. Shelf Life is a dream of a bookshop—I was wandering around in a daze and repeating how it looked exactly like the book store I would own if I owned a book store: plenty of poetry, CanLit, local authors, weird science fiction and offbeat books, and a whole shelf of zines. I bought a couple of books and a couple of zines, one of which was a single poem printed in black ink on pale pink paper, with hand-drawn and -photocopied illustrations. I was smitten; I had never thought of what a single-poem publication could look like outside of a book-long poem like The Waste Land. But here was a poem that could fit in a pocket, that could be read in ten minutes and then tucked away and pulled out ten minutes later to be reread.

That idea really stuck with me—a portable poem or story, bite-sized, pocket-sized. And the construction of zines, I realized, was not that complicated—one cut and four folds to make a tiny book. So why not try it myself? Why not put more tiny poems in the world? Personally, I tend to write poems with long lines and at least three stanzas—but what would happen if space was limited? I've been reading a variety of online lit mags for what feels like forever, and the tiny poems always seemed sort of moorless—drowned in the larger context. What if they were give a context that fit them perfectly?

So that's what I set out to do, and what we've been trying to do both with the microchaps and small poems for the masses, our quarterly zine. It's bite-sized, pocket-sized poetry, in a format that allows even the briefest of poems to shine.

Dessa mailed me the first two volumes of small poems for the masses, as well as the standalone microchaps the wishing well by Rose Hunter and Calcification by Susannah Jordan. My first impression was surprise at both how small the microchaps are and how lovingly they were produced—the folds are crisp and clean, the background photos and photo collages are beautifully done, and the cut-outs of the poems’ lines (they look like they were pasted on top of a collage) really emphasize the carefully crafted, personal nature of the microchaps. Opening the microchaps was in some ways similar to opening a present—I wasn’t initially sure how the folds worked, what was inside each one, etc., and exploring them was an engagingly tactile experience. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Dessa references her own love of physical mail as a contribution to the genesis of post ghost press:

Another important part of the press is the fact that I love mail; I love the ritual of sending mail and receiving mail. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that we'll produce digital versions of the books at some future point, but for now the physicality of the product—the pocketability of it, if you will—was really important to me in starting the press, and remains important in continuing this press. Digital media is all well and good, but there's some kind of magic in holding something physical in your hands.

The microchaps I received echo in their content the emphasis on physicality that the medium provides. In particular, Dessa has done a great job at curating the small poems for the masses volumes, each of which contain six poems. All of these poems are firmly grounded in specific details and sensations:

Silence broken again in darkening woods,
snap of twig, rub of branch. A weary
time, acquiescence, giving up
or giving over to the drift of snow
against hooded neck …

(From “The Snow Might Heal” by Frances Boyle in small poems for the masses, volume one)

somewhere
these small yellow fans
gather

twist up
into bark and branches
again, an un-
wavering
talisman

(From “talisman” by Juliana Rupchan in small poems for the masses, volume one)

… something about fall feels
lost—and dirty—like a t-shirt shed in the
backseat of the volkswagen and never
taken inside to be washed like the coffee
cup you keep reusing without rinsing
because it’s just coffee without any milk

(From “athena” by Katy DeCoste in small poems for the masses, volume one)

it is a story of collared doves a woman’s
hand church bells with no tongues
but still swinging madly in their
stone tower we feel the slow devour
of the octopus’s beak sectioning our flesh
like desert limes opening us into bleed
of sunrise

(From “portal” by kim goldberg in small poems for the masses, volume two)

Bang on trend, the tiger’s eye—
warm oval of lickable caramel,
wood striped, a sauna set in silver,
dangling between your breasts.

(From “Pendant” by Claire Collison in small poems for the masses, volume two)

As the above excerpts demonstrate, these poems are engagingly embodied. They’re also all perfectly bite-sized for the microchap format—each one fits on one small microchap page, long enough to reward re-reading, but short enough to deliver a complete experience each time you flip a tiny page.

The single-author microchaps are just as strong as the small poems for the masses volumes. the wishing well, by Rose Hunter, is, as the cover states, “a suite of found poems.” The cover image kind of implies that the material may have been found in a personal journal, since the image shows handwriting on ruled paper, with lines scratched out in pen. Regardless of the actual source for the found material, however, the three poems in the microchap effectively examine the contrasts between a disabled woman’s self-image and the one that the world constructs for her, alongside her profound sense of “betrayal by body”:

wishing well

                                    when you
don’t have the stuff                          to fill
almost         discernible shape
          what kind of shape?
           jagged
          down wall, gaping next to
          a closed door? a woman
…

(From poem iii in the wishing well by Rose Hunter)

The disjunctive nature of the found poems’ construction creates an unsettling experience for the reader that mirrors the poems’ difficult emotional content.

Susannah Jordan’s Calcification is much more conversational in its approach, although its form is also noticeably innovative. Calcification is a wry examination of a woman’s emotional response to hearing, at 39, that there may be something wrong with her breasts. The content of the poem is essentially a short narrative about this discovery and the uncertainty that accompanies it. It is split into 10 stanzas, each one numbered. Interestingly, while the content of the stanzas follows a straightforward chronological sequence, the numbers for each stanza run backwards—for instance, the first stanza is numbered 10, the second 9, and so on, until the final stanza of the poem is 1. The effect is slightly disorienting (Am I reading these in the right order? How does this work?) and increasingly ominous—the poem reads like a countdown to an event that no one wants to actually happen, and ends suspended in the diffuse dread that patients find themselves in while they wait to hear how bad the news will be.

4.
The wrap party for my thirties is just me
holding my breath, with the left melon
flattened by a machine.

3.
An ex once named them Ben & Jerry.
I fed two babies with these traitors.

2.
To calcify is to harden by deposit.

1.
I plant fear in every cell.

(From Calcification by Susannah Jordan)

In short, post ghost press’ microchaps are a gift to readers: they are physically small but very lovely artistic creations, and they are absolutely worth supporting and purchasing. Dessa is looking to branch out into even less conventional media—her Kickstarter to create poetry on socks has recently met its funding goals!—and supporting post ghost press’ work will definitely reward you.

You can purchase post ghost press’ microchapbooks here.

You can support post ghost press through Patreon.

Amy Mitchell is The /tƐmz/ Review's social media editor (as well as a writing editor) and a college professor. She holds a PhD in English Literature from Western University. Her reading tendencies have been described as "promiscuous"; she is interested in a wide range of fiction and poetry, and particularly enjoys finding new and interesting works in translation.