innovative. daring. beautiful.
Rockwood Press makes right-sized poetry chapbooks for people who need poems.
We believe chapbooks are an art form as much as a literary form, perfectly suited for revolution, protest, political change, and social critique. They can be both haunting and hauntingly beautiful.
We believe in emerging and established poets and aim to make room for all kinds of mighty voices in teeny books that might not otherwise find their way into the world.
We believe that a work doesn’t have to be full-length to have a full life. That’s why almost all of our releases are open editions.
It may not be possible to understand post-industrial New England without reading Richard Jordan. “Rainbows” in this book are both promises and trout. Hornpout, a kind of catfish, caught at Willard Pond, are full of tannery chemicals and toxic. You need a loving father to tell you that, and many of these poems are about the way good men parent their sons. There’s natural beauty here, but mortality, the end of a fishing trip with a dying friend, the Vietnam War—these things also hover. This is a fine collection from a wise poet, a soothing, necessary read.
Christine Potter, author of Unforgetting, poetry editor of Eclectica
These are narrative poems, observations of changes made in stillness, as if waiting for a tug on the line, maybe from the “brookie” that the speaker of one poem releases and then imagines in those waters for the rest of his childhood, “never telling/anyone what I knew was there.” In these poems, the past is always “upstream a stretch,” and it will coalesce as a ghost, a cloud, a drawing, a used car, or even because of a pair of knitted gloves.
Jeanne Griggs, author of Postcard Poems and After Kenyon
Spotting the Rise is a gorgeous collection, brimming with images of the natural beauty found along the banks of the author’s beloved Squannacook River. Cast your eyes across this chapbook, and you will net both small beauties and large lessons about the losses that punctuate the human pursuit of hope and joy. In one of the many stunning poems here, the poet declares, “people are immune to wonderful things.” Read this wondrous batch of poems, and any such immunity you have will be compelled to disappear.
Jo Angela Edwins, author of A Dangerous Heaven
Richard Jordan’s poems appear or are forthcoming in Southern Poetry Review, Rattle, Terrain, Cider Press Review, Connecticut River Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, DMQ Review, Tar River Poetry, South Florida Poetry Journal and elsewhere. His debut chapbook, The Squannacook at Dawn, won first place in the 2023 Poetry Box Chapbook Contest. He serves as an associate editor for Thimble Literary Magazine.
spotting the rise
spotting the rise
Recent titles
Prayers Are the Kites We Fly by Toni Ortner, coming November 25 and available for pre-sale now!
Spotting the Rise by Richard Jordan
advance directives by Dani Gabriel
Biloxi Back Bay by Rob Greene
Talking by Stephanie Staab
Someone Is Looking for You by Cary B. Ziter
View all our available chapbooks
submissions
We select manuscripts through an open submissions process that occurs year-round.
Manuscripts should be tightly linked collections of ten to thirty poems or up to forty pages, submitted in .rtf, .doc, or .docx formats only. All submissions should be made via email. We do not accept unsolicited paper submissions.
Eligibility: Poets writing in English are eligible. Previous book publication is not a consideration. Simultaneous submissions are permissible, but entrants are asked to notify Rockwood Press immediately if a manuscript becomes committed elsewhere.
There is no open submission fee.
We do our best to reply to submissions within one month, but the time can vary depending on submission volume. If your work has not been accepted or declined, it’s still under consideration. Every submission is considered thoroughly before a response is made.
All submissions are eligible for publication by Rockwood Press with a standard royalty contract.
submissions at Rockwood Press dot com
If we seem familiar
That’s because, Rockwood Press, a not-for-profit literary imprint, is a project of Fernwood Press and its parent company, Barclay Press. For years, we’ve made our books and full-length poetry collections available through POD services, but we wanted to produce more books in-house where we have control over color, texture, paper quality, and the overall shape each project takes.
We’ve also seen a ten-fold increase in poetry submissions over the last year and sensed from our conversations with writers that it’s getting harder and harder to find homes for good work.
The project of Rockwood Press is to bring more great poetry into the world in smaller, focused collections that can be produced locally, quickly, and beautifully.
