THE HEADS OF MY FAMILY, MY FRIENDS, MY COLLEAGUES: poems by JUSTIN SIROIS

After just about two years of hard labor, we are so, so excited to announce that the new book of poems by long-time NewLights author Justin Sirois, The Heads of My Family, My Friends, My Colleagues, is out & available for purchase. Here is what some of our favorite writers have to say about The Heads:

Mike Young:

When you realize the new Old Spice ads might be working on you, when you're trying to split the difference between desk jobs and shoulder licks, when you're old enough for raunch to go holy but still young enough for GIFs to go infinite—that's when you know you're in the LoS of Justin Sirois's barking and bounding poems. The Heads are singing to the super ugly animals that pace the medians. They are twitching to put back some magic. They are winking that the word "okay" is the most useful word in the room, and they are hoping to be together with you because the only way a head gets a name is when another takes it in.

Dorothea Lasky:

The poems in The Heads by Justin Sirois make me feel so many things. They are not “temples,” but “squishy” things that “I love to put my face in.” I like it that way. These are poems that are part of life, constantly affirming and reaffirming it. A life that greets you with its magic. As when "What fits in the hand/ grows into armfuls." Or when you "sex this bathroom until the bathroom ain't for/ bathing no more." Everywhere is the “imagery” of life that “repeats in heaps of beauty." These are also poems that are part of the digital America we live in now and so they make that alternate existence beautiful. I hear echoes of Walt Whitman, Eileen Myles, and Blake Butler in these poems. I hear echoes of old folk songs. Most importantly, I hear the breathing of an indefatigable I in these lines. One that is living and listening. Let's follow it.

CA Conrad:

“The tattoo / underneath the tattoo / speaks the language I want to learn.” Justin Sirois has always been one of my favorite living poets. “You have / everything you need / when you’re naked”, I trust, I trust ALL his discourse with our throbbing excitement for communion. His poems are our best possible use for ears. If I don’t know you and you LOVE these poems as much as I do, let’s get together to read them out loud over a delicious slice of something. “Lick the window / & your reflection licks back” is a delicious something we all love. It’s important they know to have a copy of this book resting on my heart when they cremate me.

The Heads of My Family, My Friends, My Colleagues

Poems by Justin Sirois
84 pages, double signature pamphlet stitch with folded jacket

8” x 6.25” (closed)

Laser printing, letterpress from lead type, lead spacing material and linoleum

Variable edition of 150 (three different jacket/cover/endsheet color combinations)

2013

$20 (plus shipping)

Please note that we will not be able to accommodate individual requests for colors. The books will be shipped as orders are received—red, green, blue….