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 D as 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.