It’s Just You & Me, Mr. Moon

In the first poem of this collection, Peter Hamer shows us Weldon Kees at his typewriter, making art for a future that looks/as empty and bleak/as the present –thereby flashing Kees out of the mid-twentieth century into our time. Here are the haze of cigarette smoke, the taste of whiskey, jazz
on the soundtrack, walk-ons by Pope Francis and Frida Kahlo, and locations chosen or invented by Hamer, the poet-director. Here is his version of Kees’ shadow/symbol … presented as an obsession. These poems about Kees offer mysteries, deeply appropriate for a man whose life story includes his sudden disappearance in 1955–a mystery still, serving here as a touchstone for Hamer’s poetry.

–Judith Arcana

Peter Hamer’s debut explores a groundbreaking potential for mystery. Lines like, Sounds of the harbor clanked around us. / Salt breeze carried a tang of diesel / and sewage. / A clock chimed some ways off. / He checked his watch. Cinderella hour bring this poetical film noir to life. For the reader interested in both story and lyricism, It’s Just You & Me, Mr. Moon is in a revelatory league of its own.

–Hannah Beresford, Poetry Editor at No Tokens