Author Signing with Bruce E. Whitacre, Greer Austin & Lucas Hunt

About this Event

Hamptons by Lucas Hunt is the second in a five-book series of autobiographical poetry illustrating in sweeping, cinematic detail the life of the poet as he progresses from a pig farm in Iowa (Iowa, Thane & Prose, 2016) to a glistening life in Manhattan. Along the way, Hunt documented his years of serenity, scene, and sea life in various parts of the Hamptons?, including Hampton Bays, Sag Harbor, East Hampton and Southampton?.

The poetry of Hamptons steps beyond the glamour of the Island and into the primacy of the alternating stillness and chaos of its environs, taking the reader any place the poet chooses to go? ?with ease.

Publishers Weekly Editor's Pick! BookFest Award-Winning Selection

2023 Second Place in BookFest Awards for Contemporary Poetry

2023 Finalist in American BookFest Best Book Awards for Narrative Poetry

"Bruce E. Whitacre's ability to capture this support network and the extraordinary efforts of Jennie Hicks in a manner that reaches beyond the usual literary or arts reader makes her story appealing to a much wider audience." - Diane Donovan, The Midwest Book Review.

"Side by side with the paintings, Whitacre's book serves as a deeply personal yet relatable account of one woman's life and turn-of-the-century lifestyle-and clearly demonstrates why this talented painter and pioneer stands as someone to remember."

"A lovely and loving celebration of his remarkable great grandmother, Jennie Hicks's, life and art, and an inspiring example of how a woman's artistic discipline gave her the courage and insight to transcend the hardships of the Nebraska frontier." Ladette Randolph, Editor in Chief, Ploughshares

Based on personal memories and family oral history, Whitacre's debut collection of sixteen poems traces the life and legacy of a family matriarch, his great grandmother, Jennie Hicks. The daughter of American pioneers, she marries a successful farmer, bearing him three girls, seeing them all married, only to outlive him and the farm. Once again alone and facing hardship, she transforms an almost forgotten hobby, her young girl dream, into a brilliant thirty-year career as a successful landscape painter, the future pride of her hometown, Farnam, Nebraska, and an important figure in American art. Lovers of American history, art, and strong female characters will enjoy these lyric chronicles.

"The heart is a chamber of ghosts, some who linger sweet and willing, some who are trapped and rattle sorrowful chains. In 'Cloverleaf, ' Geer Austin illuminates these specters of passion, their transparent skin illuminated by scent, smile, dream, and emotion. These are poems of beginnings and ends, almosts and not enoughs. These are poems of butterflies and ravens, a celebration of the joys and grievances of the golden thread that binds us together: love." -- BRYAN BORLAND, author of LESS FORTUNATE PIRATES: POEMS FROM THE FIRST YEAR WITHOUT MY FATHER "Austin's poems manage the often impossible feat of being simultaneously ironic and soulful, wry and heartfelt, clever and impassioned. With simple playful beauty, Austin stealthily unpacks the various ways gay men fall in love, forsake desire, grapple with passion, and sometimes - albeit fleetingly! - achieve grace." -- WILLIAM JOHNSON, Managing Editor, LAMBDA LITERARY REVIEW