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Poem of Thanks: Swords and The Devil

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About Poem of Thanks: Swords and The Devil

Mike Bagwell’s new chapbook is another installment in his “Poem of Thanks” series, following previous occult & tarot chapbooks (A Court of Wands; The High Priestess). Stark imagery, existential questions, and mysticism flow from the page and into your eyes at a breakneck speed. Swords and The Devil is Bagwell’s fiercest and most experimental poetic musing to date

“colors swallow everything

we arrive at the

ice palace

squad deep

only a few

go in but all belong

my signifiers sow or

snow my will speaks

I invented something

great but got drained

by mythic beasts

under strange

enchantments thanks

though to my

daughter for her

advice: don’t forget

your legs are a

magazine and don’t

forget your power

away ok?”

2026 Chapbook Project: Spring Cohort.

The beginning of our newly instated Chapbook Corp is going monochrome. 4 authors (2 of whom are debutants in their respective genres) published at the same time for one massive chapbook cohort. Original artwork was hand-selected by our editor-in-chief for both the Fall and Spring cohorts. This project is what 10 years of chapbook publishing looks like. This is Thirty West.

30 pgs with a 5.5” x 8.5” trim size.

Jacket Artwork by Oliva’s Ink Illustrations

Released on 4-24-26

For international orders greater than 2 units, please email us before ordering so we can calculate shipping. Thanks!

Edition Information

Standard edition comes in a hand-folded, saddle-stitched, or perfect-bound glue spine.

Limited edition comes in an artisanal, hemp cord binding of 20 numbered copies.

Want to experience the entire cohort at once? Go here for all 4 chapbooks, in a standard edition, for only $20 (shipping not included).

About Poem of Thanks: Swords and The Devil

Mike Bagwell’s new chapbook is another installment in his “Poem of Thanks” series, following previous occult & tarot chapbooks (A Court of Wands; The High Priestess). Stark imagery, existential questions, and mysticism flow from the page and into your eyes at a breakneck speed. Swords and The Devil is Bagwell’s fiercest and most experimental poetic musing to date

“colors swallow everything

we arrive at the

ice palace

squad deep

only a few

go in but all belong

my signifiers sow or

snow my will speaks

I invented something

great but got drained

by mythic beasts

under strange

enchantments thanks

though to my

daughter for her

advice: don’t forget

your legs are a

magazine and don’t

forget your power

away ok?”

2026 Chapbook Project: Spring Cohort.

The beginning of our newly instated Chapbook Corp is going monochrome. 4 authors (2 of whom are debutants in their respective genres) published at the same time for one massive chapbook cohort. Original artwork was hand-selected by our editor-in-chief for both the Fall and Spring cohorts. This project is what 10 years of chapbook publishing looks like. This is Thirty West.

30 pgs with a 5.5” x 8.5” trim size.

Jacket Artwork by Oliva’s Ink Illustrations

Released on 4-24-26

For international orders greater than 2 units, please email us before ordering so we can calculate shipping. Thanks!

Edition Information

Standard edition comes in a hand-folded, saddle-stitched, or perfect-bound glue spine.

Limited edition comes in an artisanal, hemp cord binding of 20 numbered copies.

Want to experience the entire cohort at once? Go here for all 4 chapbooks, in a standard edition, for only $20 (shipping not included).

About the Author

Author photo by Tina Moore

Mike Bagwell is a form of mutual antagonism towards the sky. He received an MFA from Sarah Lawrence, and his work appears in Poetry Northwest, Action Spectacle, The Texas Review, ITERANT, Sprung Formal, Afternoon Visitor, HAD, Tyger Quarterly, Annulet, and others. Recent chapbooks include Poem of Thanks: A Court of Wands (Metatron 2025), A Collision of Soul in Midair (Bottlecap), and micros from Ghost City and Rinky Dink. He runs the Ghost Harmonics reading series in Philly. Find him at mikebagwell.me, @low_gh0st, or playing dragons with his daughters.

Reviews

“I’ve always liked the way questions in poems shift their perspectives, and Mike Bagwell’s Poem of Thanks: Swords and The Devil is sprinkled with queries throughout its determined forward movement and at times struggle for psychic equilibrium against the forces of domination shadowing the current world. Have you ever rooted for a poem’s speaker? I did while watching this unique voice search for and discover love and community amid sorrow and uncertainty: ‘my mind / a village / empty of people / and then full.’ Bagwell’s Poem of Thanks poignantly charts a journey worth sharing.”

—Alan Gilbert, author of The Everyday Life of Design and Another Future: Poetry and Art in a Postmodern Twilight

“Reading Bagwell’s enthralling Poem of Thanks feels like listening to a guitar with strings of steel and smoke. The notes bend, the floor drops out. Each poetic swerve searches—'bright snarls of gold and red light caught’—for an arrangement that meets this polycrisis in a way that feels intuitively right. Firm daily fact converses with blazing, mythic symbol. Praise tangles with the horror of this moment. Step into this branched and glowing consciousness.”

—Joe Hall, author of Buffalo Free Rapid Transit and Fugue and Strike