There’s something special about a chapbook. Cheap, themed, easily absorbed and focused, it’s kind of a yummy poetry snack that can leave the reader deliciously hungry for a little more (Please, sir…). The phobia is a rich source for poetry, not only because it draws on our universal and deep seated fears and therefore provides a hotbed of imagery and intensity, but also because it can be quite funny. As is always the case with rob walker’s work, the relationship between horror and humour is handled exceptionally well.
As the title suggests, phobiaphobia is a chapbook that focuses on the phobia in all of its psychological absurdity and glory. Some of the phobias that walker explores include the fear of the figure 8, “octophobia”, fear of poetry “metrophobia”: fear of knees “genophobia” (or is that fear of genuflecting), fear of glass: “nelophobia”, fear of words “verbophobia” (not my problem), fear of the telephone “telephonophobia” (might have this one), and the very real fear of losing one’s slight or “scotomaphobia”. Even the silliest phobias are treated in a way that packs a powerful punch. For example, “Sesquipedalophobia” or the fear of long words:
u don’t need them long words.
u can say all you need.
Shun big books.
Keep it all not hardthe real stuff is all
small” (10)
Other poems hint at phobias, such as “Anorexic depression,” which is a kind of fear of food (or fatness):
when you returned from hospital we hugged.Your colour / calories / smile having
just drained awayyour birdcage chest a
cylinder of fragile
wishbones (11)
Like many of the poems in this book, it packs a huge punch with a small number of words – the longing, sadness, and helplessness of a paternal figure with an ill child all mingling. Other poems are simply wry, and don’t evoke any other emotional response, such as the iconic “Poem for a verbophobic v.9.3”: 
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