James H Duncan
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jameshduncan.bsky.social
James H Duncan
@jameshduncan.bsky.social
1.2K followers 770 following 400 posts
Poet, Writer, Editor, Indie Bookshop Reviewer
Hobo Camp Review + The Bookshop Hunter
Website: jameshduncan.com
Hobo Camp: hobocampreview.blogspot.com
The Bookshop Hunter: thebookshophunter.com
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jameshduncan.bsky.social
A Halloween poem from my book Nassau. Have a spooky night out there!
A Halloween poem from my book Nassau. Have a spooky night out there!
October 31, 2025 at 11:15 AM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
City Sunlight No. 7, watercolor on paper by Michael Chapman
City Sunlight No. 7, watercolor on paper by Michael Chapman
September 9, 2025 at 4:30 PM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
Let's goooooo!
The end of the world as we know it. New tales of Stephen King's the stand front book cover orange letters against black background
August 20, 2025 at 12:40 AM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
The David Lynch tribute issue of Hobo Camp Review is now live with work from Catherine Fletcher, Gabriel Ricard, Ryan Walraven, Michael N. Thompson, Jane Salmons, Peter Devonald, Juliet Cook, and Jay Orlando. Thanks to all who sent work!

hobocampreview.blogspot.com
The David Lynch tribute issue of Hobo Camp Review is now live with work from Catherine Fletcher, Gabriel Ricard, Ryan Walraven, Michael N. Thompson, Jane Salmons, Peter Devonald, Juliet Cook, and Jay Orlando. Thanks to all who sent work! http://hobocampreview.blogspot.com/
July 21, 2025 at 1:20 AM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
From my book Talavera Sunsets, only $10 from Bottlecap Press

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My poem Marfa from the book Talavera Sunsets
July 8, 2025 at 1:07 PM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
From my new book We Have Waited Long Enough, a split poetry collection with Kevin Ridgeway and Gabriel Ricard. Signed copies are available through all three authors.
The Angler I am a fishhook angling for the past reeling in tomorrows and tomorrows I sit along the banks of the Seine, listen to ancient waters lapping, translating secrets that say tomorrows don’t exist yet, but they will soon enough—and I’ll be gone, horizons unseen they don’t print tickets to return destinations, only to next destinations—same town? same faces? no, never it’s never the same // the yearning is different and the past is altered, forever altering as tomorrows lap against the embankments of the Seine, the Hudson, but the ticking clock here? we conspire against time I can reach up and touch the clock’s hands, set them spinning back and further yet, creating my own past the clock plays along but it knows—the tomorrow sun wakes in eastern skies as my hopes set into the west I can cast my line into the waters all I want, but time has packed my bags, bought my ticket—I’m already gone
July 6, 2025 at 4:28 PM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
Sometimes reddit is the most entertaining game in town
A redditor asking if it's legal to release spiders in an apartment to scare away an unwanted girlfriend - total insanity
June 30, 2025 at 4:50 PM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
Here's a poem from my latest book We Have Waited Long Enough, a split collection with Kevin Ridgeway and Gabriel Ricard. We're selling copies for 15 bucks apiece.
Sometimes You Eat the Bar and Sometimes the Bar Eats You it’s the end of the world and I’m buying $1 scratcher tickets on Madison Avenue, but not THAT Madison Ave., not the one with taxis and money pouring out of pockets but one in a small city with a late bus and no hope, not since General Electric left town back in the 80s to bump stock revenue, and the scratcher dust falls as I rub my key against the grain (no loose change) and I see one cherry, two cherries, and then a black bar: no match, another dollar falls into the gutter as the late bus passes by, the faces inside tired, but as I pass the closed Chinese food joint I stoop and see a nickel on the sidewalk—no wait it’s a quarter, bright in the morning sun, reflecting the nuclear future right around the corner, any day now, new and clean as an unscratched ticket
June 25, 2025 at 12:07 AM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
We Have Waited Long Enough - $15
Talavera Sunsets - $10
Both - $20
I have a very limited supply of signed copies but I'd be delighted to put them in the mail if you're interested! #booksky
Copies of Talavera Sunsets and We Have Waited Long Enough
June 21, 2025 at 1:19 PM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
Here's my poem from my latest book of the same name, a book that I co-wrote with my friends, Kevin and Gabriel. It's only available through the three of us and we'll have copies pretty soon. Hope you enjoy!
We Have Waited Long Enough you have made the beds and folded the corners military tight, orange and gold sheets burning in the morning air, precision and patience as you breathe in those dust motes floating in the sunlight I have cut apart my time and hope and organs and blood and time and time with safety scissors and numb hands while waiting, set it all aside for us like wood for the winter stove but we have waited long enough you have culled fields of wildflowers grown thick and red in the sunlight to fill the vase of this world over and over I have rolled this land up like a carpet and carried it from home to home, kept it clean and watched over the hills and glens and rivers and earth to tend it just so until it was time, everything bright but we have waited long enough you have counted the voices in the hours and tallied the destinations of the wind I have weeded gold out of the radishes and dusted silver from the squash, cast it into the sky unheeded and we have waited long enough you have turned the curtains into gowns and the chairs into splinters and the hands of the clock into riverbed sediment curving a path to a place you have only dreamed of I have parceled my bones and sleep and set them alight with embers and feathers and moss and gathered the ash to draw the map to that place, to that fever on the horizon because we have waited, now, for long enough and there’s no time left in our hearts for waiting
June 19, 2025 at 12:32 AM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
The two books I put out this year so far, Talavera Sunsets through Bottlecap Press and We Have Waited Long Enough through my own Alpine Ghost Press because I really wanted to work with my friends Kevin and Gabriel on something new and unique. Real happy with both!

www.jameshduncan.com/books
The cover of we have waited long enough features the artwork view from a window by Arthur Segal, 1930 The cover artwork of Talavera sunsets created by the good people at bottleCap press
June 15, 2025 at 12:12 PM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
Here's a poem from my next collection called We Have Waited Long Enough, a book of response poetry co-authored by my friends Kevin Ridgeway and Gabriel Ricard. I'll post more samples soon, but copies will be available directly through the three of us.
All Our Futures in Morning Light tulip beds in the park trampled down to one yellow flower angled toward the summer sun, churned soil and footprints from the escaped protestors the night before, police barriers & morning dew glisten with silence, no one left to remember the plight, reasons, or aftermath save for one tulip aching blind for the sun
June 12, 2025 at 11:32 PM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
We Have Waited Long Enough is a new book Kevin Ridgeway and Gabriel Ricard and I have worked on all year. It's a collection of response poetry and you can read more about it at my website Copies are only available through the authors for now, and samples are coming soon!

www.jameshduncan.com/books
The cover art for we have waited long enough is view from a window by Arthur Segal, 1930.
June 12, 2025 at 4:28 PM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
The poem "Intercontinental" from my book Cistern Latitudes (Roadside Press), which came out last year.

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Intercontinental the sun sets and keeps setting, a tidal wave of night cross- ing the globe, bringing love and drunken revelry, bringing exhaustion and loneliness to small rented rooms, bringing light pollution to endless downtowns, bringing 10,000 people to a row of benches in an airport terminal, a jet stream of strangers using the same space to rest, to regroup, to move forward, onto impossible contraptions carrying us to islands, to mountains, to desert airstrips or midnight fields in Europe where snowflakes fall in graceful pirouettes as the sun sets halfway across the globe on a stranger’s antic- ipation for the night and all it might bring with its tidal wave embrace
June 4, 2025 at 5:41 PM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
My poem "Grunewald" in The Westchester Review, Summer 2023 issue.

www.westchesterreview.com/james-h-duncan
The cover art for the Summer 2023 issue of The Westchester Review featuring a blue fish in a pink sea
May 27, 2025 at 2:44 PM
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"Ghost Hotel" from my book Talavera Sunsets, just $10 from Bottlecap Press #booksky

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Ghost hotel from Talavera Sunsets Ghost Hotel I had a book of west Texas ghost stories, the kind you find in tourist traps with bad art and overlarge typeface, listing all the ghouls and ghosts that remain in courthouses and canyon valleys and remote hotels from yesteryear where you can still stay in rooms with brass beds and spittoons, creaking floors and the scent of the desert air, and we passed by one such hotel, looking just how it did in my book’s black-and-white photograph The Gage Hotel in Marathon beside an old railroad line that still gets daily traffic, rattling the plates in the dining room and waking travelers and perhaps the ghost of the old gambler, or the woman in white who died on her wedding night, but we’d never know for sure as we passed at a steady clip going west, other places to be, other futures to haunt in due time
May 24, 2025 at 2:09 PM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
I randomly came across this poem of mine from 16+ years ago called "Maybe a Bird Will Sing" still online at Side of Grits/The Literary Underground. The me who wrote this is about 4 lifetimes ago, barely feels like a day. (Turn your phone sideways to read!)

theliteraryunderground.org/rmp/grits/2/...
The cover art of James H Duncan's chapbook Maybe a Bird Will Sing featuring a bird on barbed wire
May 22, 2025 at 7:05 PM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
My poem "Warrensburg" from my book Tributaries, from Maverick Duck Press (2023)

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The poem Warrensburg from the book Tributaries by James Duncan.
May 22, 2025 at 2:00 PM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
Talavera Sunsets, a chapbook about my road trip into West Texas at the end of the 1990s, available from Bottlecap Press for $10.

bottlecap.press/products/tal...
James Duncan holding a copy of his book Talavera Sunsets
May 19, 2025 at 4:49 PM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
A little poem about Albany, New York from my book Tributaries (Maverick Duck Press, 2023)
A poem about Albany, New York by James Duncan from the book Tributaries
May 18, 2025 at 2:20 PM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
I finally got my hands on some copies of Talavera Sunsets and I couldn't be happier. Only from Bottlecap Press.

bottlecap.press/products/tal...
Copy of the poetry book Talavera sunsets by James Duncan on a blue striped table with rocks and a brass compass
May 17, 2025 at 12:26 AM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
My friend Christina's new website with original artwork prints!

www.winkandweird.com?fbclid=PAZXh...
Original artwork by Christina Hubbartt, a person dressed in red and orange with an elongated neck
May 14, 2025 at 12:53 AM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
If the rain holds off, I'll be back in the Adirondacks in 2.5 weeks for some much needed "no screen" time at my favorite campsite.
A photo of Forked Lake in the Adirondacks of NY State. A lake and canoe at dawn.
May 12, 2025 at 3:36 PM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
Talavera Sunsets is a collection of poetry about the last road trip I took into West Texas in the 1990s, available from Bottlecap Press for $10

www.jameshduncan.com/blog/2025/4/...
Talavera sunsets recipientone image of a desert butte
May 12, 2025 at 10:18 AM
jameshduncan.bsky.social
I have two new poems over at The Literary Underground today, including this one called "Sky Blue Eggshells" and another called "A Voice Calls My Name" - thanks for reading!

theliteraryunderground.org/blog/2025/05...
Sky Blue Eggshells everything I hear out the window will outlive me, the birds giving birth to birds giving birth to birds dead tendrils of houseplant lie in piles on the floor coiling snakes of yesterday the dust of tomorrow a hammering echoes in the neighborhood distance so I close the window but still hear the soft intrusion once this room didn’t exist and one day it will not all these barriers as fragile as sky blue eggshells I’d like to hear the back yard sprinkler in 100 years or next autumn if the world still forgets me by then
May 5, 2025 at 2:01 PM