Nassau, a New Collection of Poems and Photos

I grew up outside the small town of Nassau in upstate New York from about age 8 to 15. We lived in a trailer park, and this collection is not about the park itself (that’s another book of mine called We Are All Terminal But This Exit Is Mine) but of memories of Nassau and the surrounding area. The book is filled with poems inspired by people and places there, perhaps not as autobiographical as my other books, but the voices and lives within the poems exist within the memories I have of the area. The book contains 30 photographs and 30 poems and is also inspired by the Bruce Springsteen album Nebraska. Poems featured include “Johnny ‘89,” “Cedar City,” “Townie Cops,” “Hand-Me-Downs,” “My Mother’s House,” “Used Cars,” “Blood of Nostalgia,” and many more!

The book is now available! Here’s a sample piece from the book. Thanks for taking a look. Your support and interest means so much to me!

Used Cars

A ‘91 Pontiac with rust stains on the roof. We took it up and down the streets in town, passed the ball fields and the gun shop and took a right at the Sunoco station back to the edge of the village. On the first turn I could tell the CV joints were going out but all she did was stare out the passenger window and tell me how she didn’t like this town. She had to get out. It was going to trap her like it did her sister. The faint smell of smoke came from the air vent. I wasn’t sure if it was residual ghosts of old cigarettes or maybe the engine. The gauge said the temp was fine but that didn’t mean anything. She put her feet on the dash. Bare and pale in the early summer sun. I thought of footprints, but who cares? I wasn’t buying this old Pontiac anyway. Not from Jeff at the Fix-n’-Go outside of town. Not after he made that racist joke about what PONTIAC (as an acronym) stands for. I’d heard it a million times. I mean, on one hand, who cares. But I’d heard too many guys I went to school with (who reminded me of Jeff at the Fix-n’-Go) who belittled my best friend, a half-Mexican, as a “spic” or “wetback” and I made the decision at age nine not to fully trust anyone who said such dumb shit. Another turn. Another cul-de-sac. The wind played with her hair. Caramel whippets dancing around the headrest. She sometimes joked about robbing a bank and she smelled like a department store perfume counter, and I like both of those things. She sighed, looked at me. I winked. Maybe it was too late for us to get out. I pulled into the Fix-n’-Go garage beside the line of used cars and told Jeff I’d like to try the ‘88 LeSabre too. He said he had to find the key. I said that was fine, I didn’t have anywhere to be. I’ll bet when he came back out to find us gone, he was pissed. But to hell with Jeff Sawyer. We headed to Smith Pond. Watching the way her feet bobbed above the water and caught the light of the sun as she tried to float with the abandoned summer camp on the hill was worth another week of hunting used cars, just something to get us from Point A to anywhere but here.

New Poem in Misfit Magazine

My poem “Cherry Dip” now appears in Misfit Magazine, edited by the absolute legend Alan Catlin. The issue is chock full of great poets and friends and I’m delighted to have been included. The poem is about watching a drug bust go down in an otherwise idyllic village downtown in front of an ice cream stand and the weird juxtaposition of the moment. The poem will also appear in my upcoming book Nassau, with more details on that soon.

And if you go to the issue of Misfit and read the Books Received and Acknowledged section, you’ll find a brief review of my book Cistern Latitudes.

My thanks to Alan for including the poem and for giving my last book a quick write-up. And thanks to all of you for reading!

New Poem in Tabula Rasa Review #3

My poem "Acre" now appears in Tabula Rasa Review Issue 3, which you can view or download digitally at the link in the comments, or buy a print edition for just $14. The editors took a lot of care to revise this one with me a couple of times to really tighten it up. I appreciated the involved and invested process, so consider sending your work too! The poem also appears in my book Cistern Latitudes, and I have a few signed copies left of that one. Thanks for reading!

Some Recent Poetry Publications...

I spent some time over the winter sending out new poems to magazine and I got lucky with a handful of places that I really admire. Some are publications where I’ve appeared before and some are new. It’s been a nice mix and it felt really encouraging to have a strong response after taking a very long time off from sending out poetry submissions. And all these poems are slated to appear in either my new book Cistern Latitudes (from Roadside Press) or my next one coming out later in 2024, titled Nassau.

Nixes Mate Review selected “Baily’s Hardware” for their print Summer/Fall 2023 Issue. (Nassau)

Trampoline selected “Pioneer” for their January 2024 Issue 21 release. (Cistern Latitudes)

Cajun Mutt Review selected “Johnny ‘89” for their Night Owl Narrative #1 Issue. (Nassau)

Chiron Review selected “Hand Me Downs” for their Winter 2024 Issue. (Nassau)

Tabula Rasa Review selected “Acre” for their spring/summer 2024 issue. (Cistern Latitudes)

San Pedro River Review selected “Village Video” and “Marathon” for their recent issue (one from each)

Misfit Magazine selected “Cherry Dip” for their summer 2024 issue. (Nassau)

Book of Matches selected “Concession” for their summer 2024 issue. (Nassau)

My thanks to all the editors who chose to include my work alongside that of so many fantastic writers and artists. I deeply appreciate it.

"Pastoral" and the Stephen A DiBiase Poetry Prize

My poem “Pastoral” placed in the Honorable Mentions for the Stephen A DiBiase Poetry Prize for 2024, alongside a bunch of great international poets as well as some local friends. The poem is set in upstate New York and looks at the ephemeral and distinct divisions between our human world and the natural one right on the other side of the fence line, late in the evening, when the wilderness and all it contains feels so much closer, larger, and more wonderous.

The poem also appears in my book Cistern Latitudes from Roadside Press, and will be released in April 2024. You can order copies from Roadside Press or look around at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. I’ll also have a limited number of signed copies.

My thanks to the judges for selecting the poem, and to Roadside Press for publishing this poetry collection.

Roadside Press to Publish Cistern Latitudes

Roadside Press and I are working on my next full-length poetry collection titled Cistern Latitudes, with a publication date slated for late spring 2024. The sibling publishing wing of Roadside Press, called Gutter Snob Books, previously published my poetry chapbook Proper Etiquette in the Slaughterhouse Line in 2022, and I couldn’t have been happier with how that one turned out, so I’m pretty excited. Roadside Press is just as dedicated to supporting their authors and putting out beautifully designed books, so I know this new book is in good hands.

Cistern Latitudes will contain 60 new poems, or as I called them, 60 small descents into moments and places that once witnessed tectonic shifts in destiny that are now as silent and still as subterranean pools of water, clear and dark and carrying the truth that life and the world may have lost its way, that tragedy may linger in the corners of our past, but there are still latitudes and geographies out there that harbor safe, calm, and magical futures if we look for them.

I’ll post more details when the book becomes available, but for the moment, here is a sample poem that will appear in the collection. Thank you for reading!

Tributaries is Now Available!

My latest collection of poetry, Tributaries, is now available from Maverick Duck Press! This collection is a series of poems about the Hudson River, from its humble beginnings in the Adirondacks all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, and the poems examine at the people and places dotting its winding path.

The poems were inspired by my friend Meg Marohn, who wrote me a poem on her typewriter at the Troy Farmers Market in 2017, after a conversation we had about all the places we lived along the river. After her tragic passing in 2022, I found the poem and wrote this chapbook based on its spirit and vision, and I dedicate this book to my friend. I think she would have liked it, and I hope you do too. The book was published by Maverick Duck Press in July, 2023 and is available now at their website. Thanks for taking a look, and if you’d like a signed copy, please reach out to me! Here’s a sample poem from the book called “Warrensburg,” and I hope you enjoy.

"Grunewald" in The Westchester Review

The new summer issue of The Westchester Review is now up, and it includes my poem “Grunewald,” a piece written from my week spent in Berlin in 2010, a journey magical enough that it still spawns new poems to this day. The issue of TWR has a ton of great writers within, and I’m honored to be included. Be sure to check out the whole issue, and you can find my own piece HERE. Thanks for reading!

"Affliction" Now at Live Nude Poems

I’m a little late sharing this but my poem “Affliction” is now posted over at Live Nude Poems. Despite the title, the poem is not read live or nude, but it is presented alongside a bunch of other great poets, including Kevin Ridgeway, Sam Moe, M.J. Arcangelini, Bill Garvey, and many others. The poem is part of a chapbook I’m shopping around, one of four chapbooks I’ve recently finished, and I’ll post more when they find homes. In the meantime, enjoy!

New Bookshop Hunter Column Focusing on Northampton, MA

Far from being able to encapsulate the many literary wonders that the Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts, my new column over at the Hudson Valley Writers Guild does attempt to offer a glimpse of the wonderful experience of wandering Northampton’s streets after a strong cocktail and a plate of oysters, darting into one bookshop after another. It’s a real pleasure and I can’t wait to go back and explore some more. And let me tell you, there’s plenty to explore. Until then, I hope you’ll enjoy this bookshop hunting column. And if you like it, there are plenty of others on archive at the HVWG website.

Talking Albany, Hometowns, and Poetry on Sanctuary Radio

This January I got to chat with Thom Francis Job—one of the Albany area’s busiest champions of poets and writers—on his Sanctuary Radio program, which you can listen to RIGHT HERE! We talked about Albany, hometowns, personal growth, my books, and hitting the road to travel and accrue experiences worth writing about, and then Thom boiled it down to about 11 minutes of the best bits from our chat. He also included my reading of “Albany,” a poem I performed at The Linda in December of 2021. The poem also appears in my book, Both Ways Home. It was a pleasure to chat with Thom, who is always collaborating, networking, publishing, and hosting one thing or another to promote poetry in our area as part of the Hudson Valley Writers Guild. I hope you’ll drop in and give our talk a listen, and be sure to check out the other writers he’s interviewed. It’s an excellent series that encapsulates the wide spectrum of talent across the Capital Region of New York.

New Interview with Pine Hills Review

In a recent interview I gave to Jasmine Bates of the Pine Hills Review, I urged younger artists and writers to take to the road, travel, live somewhere new, and spend some time living a life worth writing about as early as they could. There are always risks involved in doing that, in quitting jobs and driving cross-country, but there are risks involved in staying put as well. Risk and mistakes are unavoidable, so why not go through with it and have something interesting to say afterward? But even with all my running around and zig-zagging around the country in my 20s, I kept ending up in two places, my two hometowns, which was the focus of my latest collection of poetry and fiction titled Both Ways Home. We talk about that in the interview as well, and I’m very honored that a hometown publication like Pine Hills Review took the time to talk about the book and my process. They’re a stellar literary organization and I hope you enjoy the interview.

Now Available: Both Ways Home

My next book, Both Ways Home, is now available by messaging me at jamesnyduncan@gmail.com or by visiting Amazon or my online shop. In these 80 poems and 12 short stories, I explore my two hometowns of Albany, NY and San Antonio, TX, the allure of each as strong as magnetic poles over the many years I’ve crossed the vast American landscape to one or the other in search of work, love, friends, and futures unwritten. Marquee lights, Halloween nights, and familiar neighborhood cafes populate the poems, while the stories range from biographical to quiet studies of those struggling to make ends meet and discover their own paths forward in each city. In “Bring Your Son,” a mother contemplates how her divorce might affect her little boy’s future; in “Little Victory Diner,” a runaway works off his meal by washing dishes and bonds with a lonely waitress; a search for a mother’s grave in the Texas heat goes awry in “Empty Spaces”; and in “Dominion,” a young girl lost in the outskirts of a wealthy rural community learns who to trust and who to leave behind as the lights of San Antonio guide her to a future where she is in control of her own destiny. I hope you’ll enjoy this book, one of my most personal to date.

“This vibrant, heartfelt collection beautifully connects two hometowns, and James H Duncan masterfully brings to life the people and places dear to him. As readers, we are lucky to be going along for the ride and to make it home safely, caked in the stardust of daydream believers driving over the horizon, in love with everything that surrounds us.” - Kevin Ridgeway, author of Invasion of the Shadow People

Two Reviews of Proper Etiquette in the Slaughterhouse Line

Releasing Proper Etiquette in the Slaughterhouse Line this summer through Gutter Snob Books was an amazing experience, and I’m profoundly proud of the book, the editorial care the publisher displayed to do the book justice, and the reviews and feedback that came in. I had such a busy summer that I wasn’t able to sit down and share some of the reviews in one place but here are two quick ones!

Dennis Williamson took an incredibly deep dive into the collection, saying, “Proper Etiquette In The Slaughterhouse Line by James Duncan is a book for anyone who is at the mercy of ‘just making a living.’ Over the course of seventeen equally unsettling poems, Mr. Duncan adroitly lays bare that it is the myth of American success that we have to thank for such a condition. Indeed, our myths are no less potent than the mythology in which the Romans put so much stock, to the point that they became the backdrop of the horrors in their arenas. Moreover, Duncan traces a lineage from the Colosseum to the modern day American office.” As well as, “Mr. Duncan has become so attuned to the themes he’s treating that he can be right there beside the reader. He’s arrived, and stands on the platform where we wait to meet him. Poet as prophet. He bids us to board the train – next stop, Apocalypse.” To read the whole review, CLICK HERE!

Michael Grover, an editor and poet also took a few moments to review the book, saying, “What this book does is amplifies and brings to the surface the stress of modern employment. The constant threats, and deadlines that we are all under. How we just take it until we can’t anymore. We have no choice. The end of this kind of tailspins into what I would call prophesy. James is just reporting the facts as he sees them. In this World that continues to become more corporate by the day, it won’t take long.” Read the whole thing HERE!

Thanks so much for all your support and feedback, and signed copies are still available at www.jameshduncan.bigcartel.com and Gutter Snob Books!

Live at the Linda, December 2021

I had the pleasure and honor to join a bunch of fantastic poets at The Linda in Albany, NY last December to celebrate the end of another year of local poetry, and the recorded the session for WAMC, the area’s NPR affiliate, which you can listen to here. Albany Poets and the Hudson Valley Writers Guild have a great relationship with The Linda and they’re slowly releasing each poet’s performance as we near the end of 2022. Mine was posted in September. I haven’t listened yet (like most folks, the sound of my own voice makes me cringe a bit) but it was a fantastic night and I’m really proud of the poems I read, including a few that will appear in an upcoming book of mine (called Both Ways Home) that should drop before the holidays. Enjoy!