E-Chapbooks and Prison

From a correspondence with Matt, who runs Safety Third Enterprises:

The other day a friend of mine let me see the “chapbooks” his students made. He teaches English lit at a prison. The rules were books could only be put together through found items at the jail. What was done and written in the books is beautiful. A book held together with cut parts of a boot, a scroll that when unraveled is the length of a living room. There is strength in the physical presentation.

….

The one long scroll had the lord’s prayer written in 20 some-odd languages. There is no internet access in this type of prison so this student had to go to books, and probably other people, to write and translate it. It analyzed the prayer as a poem. The Russian version was my favorite.

I had initially thought that chapbooks, products more from indie presses than larger publishers, were more warm to print publishing than e-books, but Matt says indie publishing changes like every other market.

That prisons embrace physical forms of writing isn’t surprising, since they are bound (heh) by circumstance to use material mediums than computer screens. But it’s the limitations than form part of the message.

I still haven’t read any e-books, but I’m open to it. I’m just too stuck on reading protracted stories on two real pages in front of me.