MEXICO, Mo. - According to local poet and North Callaway School District librarian Justin Hamm, his poetry has been described as raw, authentic and "working class."
"It's a mixture of plainspoken and lyrical," Hamm said. "It's not poetry meant to make people feel stupid."
In his new poetry collection "American Ephemeral," debuting April 1 through Kelsay Books, that gritty realness is on display. This is his second full-length book; he has also published two short chapbooks.
"The thing connecting the poems is the idea of how ephemeral everything is," he said. "In the Midwest, we see the ruins of the past civilization, almost, around us. I've always been fascinated by that."
A theme of loss and memory runs through the collection, with three key poems on the subject spaced throughout. The first, "Worried Playground Daddy's Blues," connects the death of his mother eight or nine years ago to his worries for his daughters.
"It's about the fear of losing people important to you," Hamm said.
Hamm's poetry often tells a story. For example, in the poem "Barn Jamboree, Rosine, Kentucky," he fictionalizes a brief bond he once saw between two singers. He and his family were in Rosine, Kentucky, birthplace of Bill Monroe, the father of bluegrass.
"This fellow sang 'Waltz Across Texas,'" Hamm remembered. "It was the first time he'd sung in a while - he'd just had bypass surgery. Then this woman got up and started to sing with him, and there was this moment between them."
The rest of the story, he said, he invented.
Hamm has a family full of storytellers. His daughters, aged four and eight, often act out stories together, and the older one loves drawing comic books. He works on fostering a love of the written word at his job, as well.
"Being a librarian is definitely a passion for me," Hamm said.
Part of the North Callaway district for almost 12 years, Hamm has worked as an English teacher and, most recently, as the district's librarian. His favorite children's book is "Yurtle the Turtle."
"It's written in anapestic tetrameter, which isn't an easy meter to write in," Hamm said. "People think Dr. Seuss is super simple, but to them I say, 'Try.'"
Hamm also enjoys photography, and "American Ephemeral" includes about 15 of his black-and-white photographs. Here's a sample of his work, printed with permission.
Oklahoma
Where grown-old pickups go
to live out their remaining days.
The rusty, the crusty, the boxlike in body,
the last of the clunker-cash refugees
parked outside of midcentury diners
or near the downest and dirtiest dives-
or else half off the highway, like this F-150,
the powdered blue one with the red dirt dusting her hood
and the red dirt grubbing up her wheelwells,
the same red dirt found on the bootsoles
of the grizzled old cowboy
who wakes in her cab and straightens his hat
and steps gingerly into the hot Oklahoma sun
to the sounds of bone creak and joint pop.
Who two-minute gravel coughs his lungs clear
and leans smoking against her tailgate
as he scans the red dirt horizon for signs
of the invisible pale horse rider.
"American Ephemeral" can be purchased on Hamm's website at justinhamm.net/poems/american-ephemeral.