ISBN 978-0-9717265-0-5      /  $16.95 (Canada)     5.5 x 8.5       

56 pp      
PUB DATE: Spring 2001       Poetry

Never before has the universe crumbled out of a rotted fence post so convincingly, an old dog been so wise, the lives of tired bar flies mattered so much than in this amazing first book. If by the end of The New Hand you don’t feel like a beautiful zen monk then you must be dead.

—Scott Poole

 
Sean Gillihan is a vivid and accurate, true new voice in the American West. He’s been down the roads, worked the crops, fed the cattle—he knows the drills, and dignifies each quiet thing he talks about.

—William Kittredge

 
In The New Hand, Gillihan writes with ease about what comes easily, his ties to the land.

—Lee Juillerat, The Klamath Falls Herald and News

About the Author

Sean Gillihan

Sean Gillihan lives in Klamath Falls, Oregon. His writing has appeared in numerous journals, including Northern Lights, Hubbub, Clackamas Literary Review and the anthology, Writing On Water. He has been awarded a Walden Residency Fellowship, and an Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship.

On Dancing

The drunk men at the Val Air Ballroom
want you to dance. Fat, sad men.
Farmers, their thick fingers root
around beers or whiskey ditches.

You can't say no to sad men. They won't hear it
and hear it all their lives,
the sound of a distant motor, a jet trailing west.
Yes, it's a good band. Yes.
The floor a carnival ride.

Boys from North English
thumb gravel for their first kiss.
Others run the long mile,
clouds a pink corsage.
Their girls won't wait but do,
lips pursed and their hands of wood or stone.

Later, at the motel, you want to sleep
and dream something far off
like golden light,
a walk through eucalyptus at home,
water held icy in your two cupped hands.

© 2001 by Sean Gillihan