While chapbooks can be meticulously crafted from handmade paper, adorned with intricate bindings, and embellished with countless artistic details, they can also emerge from the simplest materials at hand—formed quickly, intuitively, and with a spirit of experimentation.

In this workshop at Enabling Arts, participants will explore the art and possibilities of chapbook-making through poetry, language, and creative practice. Using multilingual chapbooks as inspiration, we will write new poems, examine a diverse collection of chapbooks from different traditions and styles, and learn three foundational chapbook folds. The remarkable variety of chapbook forms reflects the rich diversity of languages and lived experiences across Turtle Island, while poetry offers a space where these voices can meet, intersect, and resonate.

Through close examination of multilingual poems and the craft choices behind them, participants will revise and refine their own writing while considering how the physical form of a chapbook can deepen and extend the meaning of their work.

By the end of the workshop, each participant will leave with a selection of favourite chapbooks from the sample collection, as well as their own handmade chapbook—folded, sewn, collaged, and shaped according to their unique creative vision—containing an original poem.

Writer-in-Residence

Kevin Spenst (he/him) is a poet, editor, performer, musician, and chapbook artist whose multidisciplinary practice explores the intersections of language, community, and creative expression. He is the author of four full-length poetry collections and nineteen chapbooks. His forthcoming book, Stanley Park Manor: A Collective History (Anvil Press, fall 2026), brings together lyric essays, neighbour interviews, and personal narratives to create a layered portrait of place and community.  He is also a Poetry Mentor with The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University, located on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, where he lives with Cheryl Rossi.

Location

Enabling Arts

343 Railway Street, #Unit 104 

Vancouver, BC V6A 1A4

Registration