As I’ve said, when I went to VCCA, I had a huge to do list. One of the things on that list was to handmake a microchap of poems – I plan on selling it while I’m on tour next year and also running a special where you get one free if you purchase all three of my books. (More on this later, I’m still working out the details!)

A while back I wrote a series of poems about Amy Winehouse. I’ve always been a huge fan of her music and her second album, Back to Black, will forever be one of my favorites and I listened to it on repeat when my first marriage fell apart so those songs and these poems weave together a lot of emotional topics: her untimely death, disordered eating, dysfunctional relationships.

I wasn’t exactly sure what to do with the poems – they didn’t fit in my forthcoming collection but there weren’t enough for a chapbook. After thinking about it for a while, I decided I would handmake a microchap of the Amy Winehouse poems. Of course, I just had to figure out how to do that…

I spent an afternoon figuring out how to format the pages correctly. Then I spent $500 on supplies – paper, an awl, book binding needles, heavy duty thread. Once I had the supplies I spent another afternoon printing all the pages. I decided I wanted to make 100 copies. Which seemed ambitious but still doable. Famous last words? Maybe…

I arrived at VCCA on Monday afternoon and after dropping off my luggage in my room, I headed to my studio with my supplies. I immediately began working on the microchap. First step: hand tearing every page – I really liked the rough edge and this was the only way to get it. But each microchap was 18 pages. And I wanted to make 100 copies… Even someone not great at math can see this was going to be a long process. But I was excited and so I set to work.

I only worked for about two hours before it was time to stop and head to dinner, but even two hours of hand tearing pages can make your hands ache. Still, I was excited to finally be making the chapbooks!

Every day I worked on this project for at least 3-4 hours. Soon, with tired hands, I’d torn all the pages and was ready for the next step.

The next step: punching the holes for the binding. Well, that’s not exactly a true statement. Yes, that was the next physical step in the process but the next real step was to watch a YouTube video on Japanese book binding so I would know what I was doing. I watched this video to learn how to do it. The hole punching part is pretty easy so once I had that down, I set about punching holes in 1,800 pieces of paper. And 200 cover sheets.

Hand punching isn’t hard, but it takes time and your hands pay a toll, especially the hand that pushed down the awl to punch the hole. For me, that was my dominant hand and so by the time I finished, my right palm was definitely aching. But I kept smiling because I loved how everything looked.

Finally, after all the pages were punched it was time to begin the fun part – binding them. I watched the video several more times, pausing at each step to ensure I got it right. Once I got the hang of it, I started cranking them out.

It took me an entire week to make all 100 microchaps, usually spending 3-4 hours each day working on it. But I love how they turned out.

The last step was, of course, hand numbering them.

I’m so pleased I decided to handmake the chaps, I love that each one is a little bit different, that none are perfect. I’m also grateful I had the time and the space to do this project at VCCA. While there I had a private studio with two desks so I could leave all of my book making supplies on one desk and migrate to the other to work on other stuff – usually taking a break when my hands needed a break. At home I would have had to take over the dining room table to keep my desk clear and that’s not ideal, especially since it took me a week to complete this project!

As I stated, I’ll be selling these next year, both on my book tour and online. I’ll have more details about that soon!