A Writer's Notebook, Day Seven-Hundred-And-Sixty-One

 I have been working on that chapbook more, and I think it works.  My goal with it is to find a way of interweaving the poems, developing something that is not just a bunch of poems, but feels connected and full in that way.  I think that a major problem, at least for me, in collecting work into a chapbook is developing the sense of it being a complete thing.  A larger book can often do this just by being the right length, but a chapbook is not so long as to provide that.  As well, it is short enough to make it feel casual.  It is easy for a reader of poetry to consider a chapbook as a sort of half-book, an appetizer in place of a meal.  I believe that the work I am doing on this chapbook overcomes that without, either, feeling it is limiting the books theme or making it impossible to include a variety of poetry that reflects many aspects of my work.  

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