This Is Fifty-three

About the book

This Is Fifty-three is my seventh collection of poems—and my most ambitious to date. By coincidence, the next number in my cataloguing scheme was 53, while 2016 was the year in which I turned 53. Accordingly, it made sense to make 53 the focus of the book. As of 15 December 2023, the print editions are out of print.

Full-color edition with photographs and graphics
Softcover 8.5 x 8.5 in., 314 pages
Alarm Cat Press #ART 53
ISBN: 9780990794998
31 October 2016

Just the Words, Man black-and-white edition with photographs and graphics
Softcover 5.5 x 8.5 in., 200 pages
Alarm Cat Press #ART 53x
ISBN: 9781536961195
21 August 2016

Smashwords e-book edition (ePub & Kindle)
ISBN: 9781370923991
23 September 2016

Amazon Kindle e-book edition (Kindle)
ASIN: B01LPM1UGE
23 September 2016

What’s in the book

For this collection, I wanted to try something more ambitious, both in scale and content. I resolved to make the book physically larger, include photographs and graphics, and print the whole thing in full color—and, to emphasize the personal nature of the book, put my photo on the cover. Most poetry collections are either 5″ x 8″, 5.5″ x 8.5″ (as the rest of mine are), or 6″ x 9″, and contain only text. Although their covers may feature illustrations or photos, these are usually either scenic or abstract; when they do include one or more people, none is ever the poet. So I was intentionally breaking a few rules with this one.

It took several months—including several weeks towards the end having to re-edit nearly all of the photographs when the print quality of the initial batch was significantly different than the printed proof—to compile, edit, design, and lay out all 314 pages, but by autumn, I had my book.

At the same time, because color is expensive, I also put together a black-and-white edition of the book, stripped-down to include just the poems (plus the photos and graphics that introduce each new section).

The contents are divided into four sections, plus a prelude and postlude:

Formalities is an exploration of poetic forms: tritina, san san, pantoum, terzanelle, viator, rimas dissolutas, rhyming couplets, lune, landay, and haiku (in actual Japanese!).

Sample poem: God’s green earth

Oddities contains poems that are experimental, strange, or quirky—or all these things at once. This is also the section of the book where the design and layout change from spread to spread (or page to page, in the black-and-white edition).

Sample poem: After the race that never reaches the finish, but abruptly ends just because

Secrets (and Other Secrets) focuses on introspective poems.

Sample poem: Hope

Delicates features poems about little moments and small details.

Sample poem: The futility of words

(Revised 15 December 2023)