Gumball Poetry
Gumball Poetry was published by Laura Moulton and Ben Parzybok from 1998 to 2006 in Portland, Oregon. Like Callithump!, they used 2″ capsule toy vending machines to sell poetry and other contents. Smartly, their main focus was poetry, printed in black & white on plain paper. This would lower costs and reduce production time over the elaborate way we do it! They even included an actual gumball in the capsule, so even if you didn’t like the poem, you still got your money’s worth. Gumball Poetry had a good run of it, with 19 machines throughout 8 states in the Pacific Northwest. Happily for them, but unfortunate for the rest of us, Laura and Ben have moved on to other creative endeavors (like having children and writing books).
