The Everyday Parade / Alone With Turntable, Old Records

Crisis Chronicles Press is thrilled to announce the release of The Everyday Parade / Alone With Turntable, Old Records, a new dual poetry chapbook by Justin Hamm. According to the author, "the back cover is printed upside down...to approximate the experience of listening to a record. The reader will read to the middle and then stop, flip the book over, and read Side Two."

Sandy Longhorn, author of Blood Almanac, says:

"With a wisdom beyond his years, Justin Hamm presents tributes, laments, and elegies for the everyday and the working class, influenced by the best tradition of American folk and country music. The ghosts of Elvis, Hank, Townes, and Dylan ride shotgun — 'the mangiest and most / loyal-looking mutts ever' — as Hamm exposes the 'underbellies of the last minstrels' and shines a perfectly wrecked light on 'the one period / in all of this long lie called history / without room for heroism or holiness.' And yet, that is exactly what these poems sing of, the heroic and the holy, and the choruses echoes on long after the last poem-track gives way to silence."

Norbert Krapf, former Indiana Poet Laureate, says:

"Put this poetry album on your turntable and listen as Justin Hamm spins you back into the origins of American song and the center of communal life. Share the voices he recovers and praise him for having the wisdom to savor 'the loveliness / of [his] wife’s hair tucked behind her ears / and the almost imperceptible music of [his] little daughter’s sneakers / swishing through the…backyard grass.' He knows what to sing!"

Published 29 July 2013, The Everyday Parade / Alone With Turntable, Old Records by Justin Hamm is approximately 40 pages, saddle stitch bound with laser printed white cover stock and deep purple endpapers. It is available for $7 (includes postage) from Crisis Chronicles Press, 3344 W. 105th Street #4, Cleveland, Ohio 44111.