7KP update

The initial set of Harry Humes' Underground Singing was printed last week. I spent the evenings cutting the pages to size and tying up a few mock-ups (the photo at left shows copies of the cover hanging up to dry above my corner desk after being run off on my inkjet printer). The publication date was set for December 21 (Yule) and everything was ready except the cover stock, which I ordered online and which still has not arrived from Texas. The post office is closed tomorrow, so my best guess is that I'll be assembling the book and mailing out copies by Friday.

Order yours today!

Underground Singing: Poems by Harry Humes

Winner of the inaugural Keystone Chapbook Award, selected by Jeff Mann.

Publication date: December 21, 2007.

Now accepting preorders: please e-mail me to order your copy for $8 postpaid.

Excerpt

Answer Me This

How do you like this caved-in bedroom,
plaster all over the floor, wall paper hanging loose,
the onyx cuff links in their velvet box,
and how do you like the attic, Mickey Spillane novels,
shoe boxes of photos and Boy Scout knives,
and the view from the attic window
toward the torn-up railroad tracks,
and how do you like the beautiful Irish girl next door
grown old and screeching, and what was the name
of the family with the ugly pony,
how do you like the old sofa,
the hand-painted tea cups from Nova Scotia,
the dirt cellar with its spiders and rats,
always winter there, broken ax and shovel handles,
rusty nails, the bucket of pigeon bones,
how do you like this moaning and tears,
doors clicking shut, someone always leaving?

: Harry Humes, Underground Singing (2007)