A Handful of Sparks

This new edition of A Handful of Sparks collects 100 of the blues lyrics and similar verses I've been writing since the early 2000s, selecting them from previous books which included other poetry forms. The title is from "Just Saying Blues", which has these lines: "I've got a handful of sparks, and a houseful of gasoline./I don't think you should ask me, 'What does burning mean?'" Humor, social commentary, surrealism, true love, rhyme, rhythm, trains, pie, and lots of coffee come together in these poems. There are pastiches of traditional blues along with lines that Lightnin' Hopkins couldn't have imagined, though he might well sing about a space elevator if he were with us today. "I'm sitting here thinking and I'm going to sit a spell,/I'm sitting here wishing everybody would be well,/,,,/I don't have any secrets, only things that I don't tell", says "Sitting Here Thinking Blues." And "Wrecking Ball Blues" reminds us that "Even a brick will beg for mercy/when they swing that wrecking ball." May it not be your day to be the brick.