Mid-Missouri poet Justin Hamm’s new book toasts Midwestern life

In a way befitting his Midwestern upbringing, Justin Hamm’s latest collection features many sides and scenes of the poet as a humble public servant.

Hamm often takes up the pen and the plow like a poet-farmer. He pauses to note the changing weather; he stays in physical contact with the terrain that many consign in memories and rear-view mirrors; even ground enough language to capture the common experience.

As a poet and journalist, Hamm recounts the passage of time, and its effect, often weathered, and sometimes refined, on the people, places, and things around him.

And the writer from Mid-Missouri fulfills the priestly function of a poet: shaping the confession and summoning a wake for moments that naturally get out of hand. This ideal is reflected in the book’s title, “Drinking Guinness with the Dead,” but Hamm doesn’t just care about the deceased.