Weeping sheep and the consolations of philosophy - an introduction to the poetry of Justin Hamm, reformed classics blogger

from Illinois, My Apologies

At thirteen fourteen and fifteen
I was an alien among
the Rockwellian agricreatures
of my home galaxy

I’m turning from Martian invaders to Martian poetry, the American Midwestern version.  Those lines begin Justin Hamm’s poem “Illinois, My Apologies,” and his new book of the same title.  “Rockwellian agricreatures” gives a pretty good sense of Hamm’s strengths.  Tableflat, tarbrained, flannelclad, sheepshapes, fleshyfat, holyspeak – chewy words with a solid mouthfeel.

Once upon a time, perhaps as long as three years ago, Hamm had a book blog called What Do I Know, a so-called classics blog.  In real life he, like Tony Curtis in Spartacus, “taught the classics to the children.”  At some point he mentioned that he had a poem in something called Renaissance Magazine, which was fortunately on the newstand at Borders.  The feature article was all about Renaissaince Faire wedding dresses, oh, so hideous, so hideous, but the poem was – well, it was a real poem.  “To the Venerable Bede,” it was called.  Hamm posted or linked to another couple of poems, and after reading them I thought to myself, this book blog sure as heck won’t be around much longer.  This fellas got bigger fish to fry.

from At Sixteen

but the black sheep
reads Boethius to the spiders
by flashlight
beneath the stairs
weeps for everything
worth weeping for

If you detect a note of adolescent self-pity, that’s the subject of the poem, a subject of the book, even.  I do believe Hamm is mostly sincere about the title of his book.

Illinois, My Apologies is Hamm's first book, a fifteen poem chapbook tied up with string that binds in a poster and a CD of Hamm reading his work.  The poet, who I only know as a blogger, asked me if I wanted a review copy.  A prig about free books, I said, no, of course not, how dare you, and bought my own.  The madmen* who operate Rocksaw Press will send you a copy, too, for $12.

from Goodbye, Sancho Panza

I meet
a Slim Jim munching
Sancho Panza
goateed now
all leathered out
and in close contact
with his inner beast

Now that’s a good hook, and the rest of the poem lives up to the promise.  I suppose I should try to give the book something like a proper review.  Not my strength, but tomorrow, I’ll try.  What’s a good reviewer's cliché – a promising debut!  Quite a bit better than that, really.

* “Madmen,” defn.: anyone who runs a small poetry press, God love ‘em.