Saturday, July 04, 2020

My Latest Book is Now on Amazon


In 2005 I started my tenure at the historic weekly reading series Stone Soup Poetry, co-hosting and promoting at first before becoming the full time host.

Ten years later, I began a series called Stone Soup Croutons, poems I would write based on what was read on the open mic and who was featured each week.

The Collapsed Bookshelf is a selection of Stone Soup Croutons pieces written from June 2015 to August 2016. This book collects reworked poems, many of which are no longer available online.

I am grateful to Mignon Ariel King and Tell-Tale Chapbooks for giving this work a brand new presentation. I am also grateful to Edward S. Gault for providing photography for the cover.

Order my book now off of Amazon. Thank you for your support. 


"One of my favorite books of poetry! There is a champion poet at work here! Chad Parenteau’s skill to write us readers out of any prediction is hard at work from the very first poem, and continues telling us the grand, easy truth of life, “Your empty hands need nothing to hold.” I want to buy a copy for everyone I know!"

—CA Conrad, author of While Standing in Line for Death


Parenteau's latest collection is a necessary and edgy sifting of the communication deluge that speaks to the times we live in; there is a tearing down and rebuilding here with language, a scaffolding of information-age navigation and nuance: “You fail in language/only if you fall in love with it.” Fortunately for us, his deft use of words and imagery, his command of the line, his ability to challenge language rather than merely falling "in love with it," makes this book a striking success.

—Joanie DiMartino, author of Licking the Spoon, Strange Girls


Chad Parenteau questions where we fit into modern society and what legacy modern society will leave behind. Are we a single man going nuclear (or nuclear family)? Are we driving through automated tolls without a pass just to be pictured and be remembered? When Mr. Parenteau suggests our flailing with Evel Knievel riding a 10-speed, or Eminem reciting Orwell, we (society) have been put in our rightful place.

—Timothy Gager, author of Spreading Like Wildflowers and thirteen other books of poetry and fiction

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