Hammer

the long version

"Turpin is a poet of unusual gifts. . . a meditative and social poet whose real subject is the connection between one person and another -- sometimes, between one person and all others. His material is not local color, but the universal, and the building trades are presented not as exotic but for their likeness to the rest of life." -- Robert Pinsky. "This work is so fundamentally substantial and pleasurable that it feels, to me, like an anthem." -- Tony Hoagland. Mark Turpin has made his living for the past twenty-five years as a carpenter and construction worker, and his debut collection offers a rare and profound view of manual labor's laconic, and largely male, world. He lives in San Francisco.