HardSoftwood can best be described as a dual chapbook – two chapbooks in one. Each section features a selection of poems from two of Gary B. Fitzgerald’s books Hardwood and Softwood. The digital chapbook gives you a chance to preview Gary’s poems before buying his books.

HardSoftwood is the first chapbook in the World Class Poetry Promotional Chapbook Series. Designed to help poets promote their books in print, each chapbook will present a small selection from the poet’s published book of poems and provide a link for readers to purchase the book if they like what they read. All the chapbooks will be free downloads.

If you are a poet and think you might be interested in having your published book of poems promoted in this manner then read our submission guidelines and send us your published book for review.

If you enjoy good poetry and just want to experience Gary B. Fitzgerald’s poems then I invite you to download his dual chapbook HardSoftwood for free.

Reading Gary B. Fitzgerald’s poems are like going back in time and pulling William Blake up from the annals of Romantic obscurity to join us here in the 21st century. While the poetic flavor may be in the same spiritual, mystical tone of many of Blake’s finest poems, the subject matter is much more contemporary in nature, a very nice blend.

A self avowed “Taoist nature poet”, Gary B. Fitzgerald provides a number of literary strengths, among them a versatility of perspective. He looks at life, nature, science, philosophy, and all things human from a myriad of angles while remaining true to his personal aesthetic. And the poems are a good read through and through – insightful, humorous, sensitive, and organic. All digital.

Download Gary B. Fitzgerald’s two chapbooks – Hardwood and Softwood – with the World Class Poetry Toolbar.

Gary B. Fitzgerald has commented on some of the blog posts here at World Class Poetry Blog and has been a faithful reader now for about a year, I guess. Last year he published two full-length poetry books under the imprint of AuthorHouse. While these two books are self-published, the quality of the contents would not suggest it.

Gary has agreed to allow me to publish a selection of the poems from his two books, titled Hardwood and Softwood, as a chapbook. We’re talking about a total of 155 poems between the two books. Our digital chapbook will feature less than 20 poems from each book, but those poems will showcase Gary’s poetry in the best possible light, a task that proved to be quite easy considering the high quality of his verses.

Nature poetry does not get much respect in our modern technological era, much less does it when approached from an Eastern philosophical bent. But Gary B. Fitzgerald’s Taoist nature poetry is must reading for anyone interested in simplicity without simple-mindedness and humanity without vituperation.

The Three Phase Publication Schedule
The publication of these two chapbooks will come in three phases. The first phase will be the publishing of Hardwood as a standalone chapbook. The second phase will be the introduction of Softwood as a standalone chapbook. Phase III will be the combining of the two chapbooks into one dual chapbook.

Why three phases? Honestly, for practical reasons. Rather than wait on the publication of both chapbooks, I’ve decided to offer the completed chapbook while the other is in production mode, but only to WCP Toolbar users. When Softwood is finished, it too will be made available to our toolbar users. The final chapbook, with selections from both Hardwood and Softwood, will be made available as a .pdf document to anyone who wants to download it.

Hardwood will be made available in the next day or so. If interested in the 15 poems that make up Hardwood then I encourage you to download the World Class Poetry Toolbar so that you’ll have access to the chapbook when it is made available. The toolbar is free to use and also includes access to Internet radio, some of the most popular poetry blogs online, and almost 30 online poetry journals.

If you have a full-length book you’d like to promote and would like to get it in front of the 15,000+ and growing unique visitors every month that World Class Poetry properties has to offer then sign up for our chapbook update list and you’ll be notified of when you can submit work for publication as a chapbook.

Until then, I hope you enjoy Hardwood.