Books - Chad Parenteau: Poet for Hire

The Poet for Hire Has Product

I've authored three chapbooks and have appeared in numerous anthologies. Most of them are available via links below.

Chapbooks

Discarded: Poems for My Apartments

My latest chapbook, courtesy of Červená Barva Press. These so-called "roommate poems" (though they cover many topics) helped to close several chapters of my life (and serve to remind me why I live by myself today). Tom Daley, my friend and frequent poetry instructor, puts it better than I can: "These poems will leave their mark on the mind of any reader who has ever stammered through a roommate interview or suffocated from the incense sneaking under the crack at the bottom of a roommate's door."

Purchase it on The Lost Bookshelf.

Sarcastic Haiku

In late 2002, I started my series of "Sarcastic Haiku" as an exercise. As my country moved closer and closer to war with another former ally, my haiku became more and more linked with the Iraq war and the GW presidency.

Printed on normal copy paper, this is the most "zine" of my publicaitons. I don't sell this online but at readings, I'll part with a copy for $2 or include it with another purchase.

Self-Portrait In Fire

My first poetry chapbook, self-published in 2003 under my Freak Machine Press imprint. Since I thought at the time that it would be the only collection I'd ever do, it contained only my best work from my college, MFA, and small press years from 1994-2001. I still read a lot of the pieces in this book when I feature.

Still available after all these years. The secret? Overprinting!

Purchase it via my PayPal link.

My Work In Anthologies

The Baby Chronicles: Poems In The Voices Of Those Who Can Not Speak

The Baby Chronicles is a book I co-edited with Michael E. Quigg. It contains a series of persona poems unlike any other, all spawned from a poem written by Steve Subrizi about a baby and some seaweed. I have quite a poems in the book, and I thank Michael for both the opportunity to submit and for allowing me so much input into the book's creation. Part of this input included bringing in friend and longtime collaborator James Conant, who illustrated the book throughout, including the cover.

Proceeds from this book will benefit Partners In Health. Stay tuned for information on how to order the book.

Bagels With the Bards No. 4

The Bagel Bards are commemorating this year with a plaque at the Au Bon Pan in Davis Square, Somerville and the release of this latest anthology volume. "My Year of Learning to Dance In Mud" is the poem of mine that appears of this locally produced anthology, dedicated to the memory of local poet and fellow Bagel Bard Mike Amado, whose work is also included.

Purchase it on Lulu.

Journey

Anne Brudevold's well known Eden Waters Press returns with this new themed anthology of poetry, prose and photography. Appearing here is my haiku sequence, "My Father's Seasons" (marking the end of my father's life journey as well as my own emotional voyage. I haven't gotten a copy yet, but the quality of the writers I know (Carolyn Gregory and the late Mike Amado) makes this a safe recommendation.

Purchase it on Lulu.

Wilderness House Literary Review: Best of Volume 2

I hadn't submitted to this journal for a while. I had no idea my poem "Us" was selected for this second "best of" compilation. Check it out.

Purchase it on Lulu.

The Hay(na)ku Anthology, Volume II

The hay(na)ku is a poetic form/haiku offshoot created by Eileen Tabios. I thank her for introducing me an many other blogging poets to the form and editors Jean Vengua and Mark Young for including me in this anthology, published three years after the first (giving me time to work on my craft after being rejected for Volume I). Learn more about hay(na)ku here and read my poem "Summer's Back" in the book.

Purchase it on Amazon.

Bagels With the Bards No. 3

The Bagel Bards is a group based in Somerville, Massachusetts that invites local writers to meet every Saturday at Davis Square. For three years, they've been putting out anthologies of this group's work. Their third collection came out in 2008. My poem "Jack Powers At Home" appears here among several other friends' work.

Purchase it on Lulu.

The Boston Poet Journal: Bad Ass

The second in the new series of print anthologies from Boston Poet and its editor, Diana Sáenz. I'm published beside friends such as Paul Hapenny and Deb Priestly, and it's a good selection of my work with three poems: “Another Work Poem,” On Your New Living Space,” and “Roommate." "Roommate" is from my Self-Portrait In Fire chapbook, and "On Your New Living Space" is from Discarded: Poems for My Apartments. If you're someone who's never bought my work before, this is a good introduction to me and the Boston/New England scene.

Purchase it on Lulu.

Eden Waters Press Home Anthology

Eden Waters Press was founded by fellow Bagel Bard Anne Brudevold. The 2007 Home anthology is the first of her efforts. A collection of poems under the theme of home, this is where I first published "Discarded," which later became the title piece for my chapbook of roommate poems. Ther are also many other diverse writers (friends and strangers) to recommend this title to the average reader.

Purchase it on Lulu.

Wilderness House Literary Review: Best of Volume 1

WHL Review is a well-regarded online lit mag. Find out more about it by clicking here. The print version, collecting a good chunk of its first year of issues, contains "Charon's Slow Day," an early version of a poem I later rewrote.

Purchase it on Lulu.

French Connections: A Gathering of Franco-American Poets

In 2006, thanks to co-editor Christine Gelineau and friend and fellow poet David R. Surette (who recommended me to her) I was invited to contribute to this anthology of poems and autobiographical essays from various Franco-American authors intended "...to provide a forum from which one could hear the wide spectrum of what it might mean to 'sound French.'” My own essay, as well as my poems "Dumb Mud" and "Homecoming," appear alongside the work of too many authors to name here. Being published in French Connections is one of my proudest moments as a poet. If you splurge on anything you see here, I hope it's this.

Purchase it on Amazon.

Bagels With The Bards No. 2

My first contribution to the group's annual anthologies was a (then) timely political sestina called "Go Team," and it's the least of the reasons you should pick up this wide-spanning collection of poetic styles.

Purchase it on Lulu.

I joined to late for the first volume, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't buy it.

Click here to do so.