Boiling It Down

Ever since Larry D. Thomas crafted the poems which ended up in his first book, The Lighthouse Keeper, a Small Press Review "Pick-of-the Issue" chapbook published in a handset letterpress edition by Timberline Press in 2000/2001, he has turned to the chapbook as his favored means of poetic expression on twenty-five occasions (ten of his published books are book-length print editions).). His chapbooks have received a number of other significant honors including a Western Heritage Wrangler Award for The Goatherd (the first poetry chapbook to be awarded this most prestigious honor); a Pecan Grove Press National Chapbook Competition finalist citation and Violet Crown Award finalist citation (both for The Woodlanders); and a Spur Award Finalist citation (for The Red, Candlelit Darkness) from Western Writers of America. Additionally, his poem titled "Irene" from Los Días de los Muertos was nominated by Right Hand Pointing for the Pushcart Prize. Fifteen of Thomas's twenty-five chapbooks were first published online (as electronic chapbooks), thirteen by Right Hand Pointing in its invitation-only poetry chapbook series. The Circus, published by Right Hand Pointing in 2008, was re-published in an expanded print edition by Blue Horse Press in 2016. The Red, Candlelit Darkness, first published in print by El Grito del Lobo Press, was re-published online by Right Hand Pointing in 2013. Thomas's other e-chapbooks were published by Lily Press, Slow Trains Literary Journal, and the Virtual Artists Collective (nodding onion imprint), all three of which are/were juried publications (Lily Press has ceased publication). Thomas has enjoyed the artistic challenges the chapbook provides in concision of language and seamless thematic unity.