Chapbooks, like Plath’s poem “Metaphors,” are mixtures of brevity and wonder. Compression and pleasure. Weirdness and perfection. Plath herself, writing in her journal about the first drafts of “Metaphors,” said, “They are never perfect, but I think have goodnesses.”

Here at Nine Syllables Press (9SP), we believe chapbooks are whole books, not just abbreviations. We love books as art objects themselves, as well as the words inside them. We see the compact craft of chapbooks as opportunities for “goodnesses,” in both traditional and wholly original forms.

9SP is created in partnership with the Boutelle-Day Poetry Center at Smith College. We seek to address ongoing inequity in the publishing world by providing a new platform for the systematically excluded voices of women, BIPOC poets, and trans/LGBTQIA++ poets. 9SP honors and continues the long tradition of poets and poetry at Smith, including Sylvia Plath ‘55 while extending that community to the other Seven Sisters colleges and beyond. 

“Love set you going like a fat gold watch,” begins Plath’s poem “Morning Song.” Love of poetry and poets set us going at 9SP, and keeps us going.