Alan Humm

In Memoriam For Thomas Morrow1 PegasusThe bike, the bike’s momentum and the roadare all one thing.It’s like manoeuvres:every gesturesomething that you’re swimming in.You don’t heft a gun;something within you does...

This poem's in my new collection. I wrote it for my grandfather.

Blackstar Yes, something happened on the day he died.Something was let out of the world, like airfrom a balloon. We cried, mostly, for us:for all those times the world was just an echo,dully reverberant, and he...

My new book of poems is called My Father is Calling the Neighbours Names and it's out on September 16th. I've nicked and adapted a Wallace Stevens title for a sequence called Thirteen Ways of Looking at David Bowie. Here's one of the poems.

New writer's diary:

June Wentland: a poem The Playwright's House To achieve déjà vu in a dream you should sleep in an unfamiliar room – the pungency of mint on fingertips, a smear of herbs on the lips. It should be in a house besieged by tree...

Here, from the One Hand Clapping archive, is a great poem by June Wentland.

I have a question for all of my friends who are also writers. Goodreads? BookBub? I understand that they can prove beneficial when it comes to selling books but I've never felt like I've learned how to use them properly. Any tips would be much appreciated.

The Sparkler Buy The Sparkler by Humm, Alan from Amazon's Fiction Books Store. Everyday low prices on a huge range of new releases and classic fiction.

My book appears to be on special offer. A prize to the first person who reads it on the beach.

Pascale Petit: a poem Photograph by Brian FraserGreen Bee-eater More precious than allthe gems of Jaipur – the green bee-eater. If you see one singing tree-tree-tree with his space-black billand rufous cap, his robesall ...

Here's a lovely poem by Pascal Petit. It's in an early edition of One Hand Clapping.

Thank you.

The moment when you hold your own book in your hand for the first time… Thanks, as always, to the excellent Vine Leaves Press.

Paul Muldoon: Le Jongleur Some days it looks as if I might be limbering upfor my role as a human cannonballcomplete with an athletic cup.When it comes to protecting my thingamajigI take my cue from the Good Thief and stay clos...

Here, from the One Hand Clapping archive, is a poem by Paul Muldoon. (It was unpublished at the time.)

Ilya Kaminsky: a poem That Map of Bone and Opened ValvesI watched a sergeant aim, the deaf boy take iron and fire in his mouth –his face on the asphalt,that map of bone and opened valves.It's the air. Something in the air ...

Here, in our archives, is a great poem by Ilya Kaminsky.

Hi. I've been trying to contact you but haven't been sure how. I've got a new book of poems coming out in September and one was inspired by Another Lullaby for Insomniacs. I wanted to show it to you to make sure you were OK with it. (It's not a copy but I wanted to make sure you were comfortable.)

Fran Lock: a poem On incantation An off-white hotel bedroom in the pokey heat of summer: here is our oldcalamitous melancholy, come to cull my love like a captured flag. I standnear-naked in the cock-a-doodle moonlight...

I'd like to reacquaint you with some of the best writing (and other stuff) from One Hand Clapping. Here, in the first issue, is a terrific poem by Fran lock.

I’m afraid I had to type that up out of the book.

Ali Smith: a story True short storyThere were two men in the café at the table next to mine. One was younger, one was older. They could have been father and son, but there was none of that practised diffidence, none of ...

We're warming up for another One Hand Clapping event. Something bigger this time; a festival. In the meantime, I'd like to repost the work of some of our contributors.

Rough Music (Chapter One) We are standing, Pete and I, next to the closed façade of Aldwych station. There, in the distance, is Trafalgar Square, the crowds already massing around the fountains and beneath the column. I turn a...

Vine Leaves Press will be publishing my second novel, Rough Music, in 2026. Here’s the first chapter.

I used to get submissions all the time. They still trickle in occasionally. If, for argument’s sake, I knew of the existence of a fantastic unpublished literary novel - it’s a saga; historical fiction - where should I advise the person to send it? Agents? Publishers? All advice gratefully received.

Yup.

"Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances — every day, in every part of the world." Umberto Eco

Thanks Lucy.

YouTube video by Bettye Swann - Topic Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye

Track of the week.

Nick Coleman | Substack Psychotherapist/writer and former journalist, with three books published in the UK, two in the US — thinks a lot about music. Art, sport and books too. But mostly music.

When I was an impoverished young man I used to walk into newsagents, pick up Time Out and search for anything that Nick Coleman might have written. Only when I'd read everything by him would I then scarper.

In other words, when it comes to Substack, these are a cut above. Do check him out.

You too. Yes. My own stuff is taking up a lot of time, currently. But I may return to it.

For those of you who are new friends, here is the One Hand Clapping archive. The intention was always to feature well-known authors next to those who we thought deserved a bit more attention. We're very proud of it. (And we haven't completely written off doing it again.)

www.1handclapping.online