Poets and Poems: Justin Hamm and “Drinking Guinness with the Dead”

Justin Hamm has published his first collection of previously published poems. 

At one time, I wondered why poets published “collected” or “selected” poems previously published in individual volumes. What I found confusing was how one differentiated between a collection, a collection of collected poems, a collection of selected poems, and a combination of collected and selected. Some collections even include “uncollected” poems alongside collected ones. If you select an uncollected poem for your collection, can you really call it uncollected? (Editors and poets get around this by calling these poems “previously uncollected.”) It takes time to sort through the meanings and intentions of all these terms.

 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry. 

Words, Music, Voice: Justin Hamm and “Federico Garcia Lorca Blues”

Justin Hamm, a native of central Illinois, has published a photography book, Midwestern, and three poetry collections, American Ephemeral, Lessons in Ruin, and The Inheritance. His poems, stories, and photographs have been included in anthologies and published in a number of literary journals and magazines, including Nimrod, The Midwest Quarterly, Sugar House Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, and others. He’s also had several solo photography exhibitions. He now lives near what he calls “Mark Twain country,” which is northeastern Missouri, about two hours north from where I live.

He’s released an album of recorded poems entitled Federico Garcia Lorca Blues. It’s more than recorded poetry; it’s orchestrated with simple music and sound effects and enhanced with Hamm’s deep and resonant voice. I decided to listen to it in my backyard, and it turned into an almost perfect “poetic experience.” Later, I talked with Justin about poetry, favorite poets, and the album.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Listening to the Poets in the Sounds of Silence

If a single word could be used to describe the 2400-acre Shaw Nature Reserve 40 miles southwest of downtown St. Louis in Franklin County, it would be silence. When a soul craves contemplation or calm, it’s the silence that attracts. It’s not serenity I’m looking for, though, but rather a cure for restlessness.

I’ve been here before, and late November is a good time to visit. The temperatures are cool without being chilling; slithering creatures have crawled into their dens for the approaching winter; and the gray brownness of the trees and terrain guarantee few visitors, especially on a Monday.

The reserve opens around Pinetum Lake, and the scene, especially in autumn, could pass for a landscaped design in 18^thcentury England, like at Blenheim Palace. All that’s missing is the Greek temple.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Photograph: Pinetum Lake, Shaw Nature Reserve.

Poets and Poems: Justin Hamm and “The Inheritance”

I’m reading the poems of The Inheritance by poet and photographer Justin Hamm, and I realize how easy it would be to say “rural poems” and “regional poet.” It would be easy, and it would also be wrong. 

I’m reading these poems, and I’m thinking about the blond-brick 1950s ranch home where I grew up in suburban New Orleans, and the house on Fairfield Avenue in Shreveport where my father grew up (on the wrong side of the great dividing line of Kings Highway), and the house on Dauphine Street in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans where my mother was born and lived until she was 27, a divorcee with a six-year-old child living with her mother.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.