UA37/2 If This Next Apocalypse Gets Canceled or Postponed

Poem written by WKU English professor Tom Hunley during Covid-19 pandemic

UA37/2 We Will Survive

Poem written by WKU English professor Tom Hunley during the Covid-19 pandemic

UA37/2 We Lived Happily during The Plague

Poem written by WKU English professor Tom Hunley during the Covid-19 pandemic

UA37/2 Lockdown Haiku

Haiku written by WKU English professor Tom Hunley during Covid-19 pandemic

Plunk

“BLURBS” My manuscript got picked up like a hitchhiker, bedraggledand haggard, and I need words to cover the back cover.I don’t want to rouse any of my poet friends from theirlonely fame. They should be writing poems, not blurbs.They should be jogging or having prescriptions filled.We can all agree on this, I think. They should be tendingto their gardens and their students. They should beclosing the bar, working on their lines. I could walk up to Matthew Dickman at AWP and go“Matthew, please blurb my book” and he might do it.See, I’m on a first name basis with Matthew Dickman,so you should read me would be what the blurb wouldsay, regardless of what words he put in it. Eduardo Corral is the nicest guy in po-biz, and I’ll betI could cajole him into writing “These richly-inhabitedpoems glimpse the mysteries and do not flinch whenconfronted with the inevitablity of tragedy. In his latestcollection to date, Hunley ricochets between irreverentdefiance and childlike awe. Reading this book is like takingjello shots at Disneyland.” But what would that mean?Don’t ask me; ask Eduardo.https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/english_book/1015/thumbnail.jp

Annoyed Grunt

Imaginary Friend Press is happy to release Annoyed Grunt, by Tom C. Hunley! This chapbook includes a critical introduction by Denise Du Vernay as well as 19 pages of Hunley\u27s fantastic poetry. These persona poems take on the roles of America\u27s favorite family, The Simpsons, and the poems embrace each character\u27s dysfunctions, insecurities, and charm.https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/english_book/1026/thumbnail.jp

The State That Springfield is In

Inspired by America\u27s most prominent hallmark of modern pop culture, The Simpsons, poet Tom C. Hunley shares his narratives––autobiographical or allegorical––by channeling the eccentric personas of residents in the animated sitcom\u27s town, Springfield, and trusting their voices to speak on his behalf, resulting in true poetic entertainment. As author Denise Du Vernay states in the collection\u27s introduction, Tom\u27s interaction with The Simpsons doesn\u27t follow sitcom or even cartoon rules. He doesn\u27t have to. Tom follows a mysterious set of rules, completely unknown to those of us without a poet\u27s sensibilities. That is the sentiment that defines Hunley as an artist. He is a poet who has a firm grip on poetic formalism (the rules ), but, as is the case with any true artist––perhaps a guitarist for the sake of a metaphoric example––Hunley knows when it\u27s time to part from his Eddie Van Halen trickery in exchange for what resonates with those who are unfamiliar with the rules, theories, and doctrines of art: gritty power chords strummed in the manners of Kurt Cobain or Johnny Ramone.https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/english_book/1014/thumbnail.jp

The Poetry Gymnasium

This book contains ninety-four exercises designed to inspire creativity and help poets hone their skills. Each exercise includes a clearly-stated learning objective, historical background matter on the particular subgenre being explored, and an example written by students at Western Kentucky University. The text also contains model poems by leading American poets including Sherman Alexie, Billy Collins, Denise Duhamel, and Dean Young. The book’s five chapters correspond with the five canons of classical rhetoric: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery.https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/english_book/1018/thumbnail.jp

My Life as a Minor Character

Hunley is the next Young/ Hoagland/Ruefle, the next man/woman/child in our collective rowboat of poets. And as one of his speakers duly notes, Someday you\u27re going to know this. / Or you\u27ll drown. --Mark Yakich It is impossible to read My Life as a Minor Character without smiling. Not that the poems here are \u27happy,\u27 but that they are teeming with humor and tenderness and surprise. Hunley has a clear love for language, but there\u27s nothing showy or precocious here. Honest without being earnest, each poem feels connected to a real person with real hopes and laughs and bills and bad days, heartaches and heartburn. I read this collection in one sitting. The world that I saw when I put these poems down and looked out the window was a different world, a richer, more meaningful world full of possibility and sweetness and genuine wonder. --James Kimbrellhttps://digitalcommons.wku.edu/english_book/1037/thumbnail.jp