‘Tis the season!

Get free shipping on most products at my online store.

Merry Merry!

To celebrate the creation of my latest set of handcrafted books, I’m offering FREE SHIPPING on all orders through my website and for Canadian orders on ETSY.com

learn more about the book here

Order it now

Limited Edition Handcrafted Book
8.5 in x 5.5 in; 144 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9865813-1-1

$29.99

Or, order it from Etsy

The smell of coffee.  Pages
steeped and hung to dry.  A strung out hands
on process.

I’m making another set of my handcrafted collection of poetry God/he.  I enjoy the process.  It’s timely, reflective.  It makes me thankful for one of the many things that trees give.  For the privilege of belief.  For the weight of words.  For women and men far and near who work at the wheel to produce coffee.  That seeds planted in soil take root.  That time pauses and moves.  That we can, and must, wrestle for the blessing.  That words become flesh.

Over the last few months I’ve been experimenting with book making.  It’s been quite fun.

And now I’m pleased to offer my collection of poems as a limited edition volume of poetry.  It’s handcrafted in two senses: 1) I wrote the poems and 2) I made the book from scratch.

All in all, it’s a labor of love, and a sign post in the existential quest of life and creativity.

Synopsis:

A collection of vivid, image-based poems, God/he is both love song and shouting match, an existential celebration and struggle between the human and Divine. The work is written in the spiritual tradition of wisdom literature and paradox, framed by the stories of Job and Jacob who wrestled with God.

Themes the collection examines are the power and force of words, the risk of love, and the inevitable suffering of man and God as they live and interact with each other.

Through the collection He faces the agony and insanity of existence head on as he starts to become more and more unfamiliar with the God he thinks he knows so well, a God who is a trickster and green-thumb, a bloodhound on the trail, a doctor who treats Chlamydia before lunch.

Selected poems from God/he were published in Rock and Sling (2004) and chosen for the annual Utmost Poetry contest (2004 and 2005).

Read a sample of the award-winning poems.

Limited Edition Handcrafted Book
$30.00 (plus S+H)

Select Cover Shots:

I’ve started to make my own books from scratch.

I have a ways to go before I perfect the craft, but it’s something I’m enjoying.

It starts, as most good things do, with a whole lot of coffee.  Tubs of it, in fact. Kona blends, espresso, caramel infused brew to steep pages of paper.  Clothes lines that criss-cross the basement, needle and thread, glue and precision, and a measure of patience.

I’ve started to produce my collection of poetry, God/he, which I describe as a book of short, imagist poems that is both love song and shouting match between the human and Divine.  Written in the tradition of wisdom literature and paradox it is framed by the stories of Job and Jacob who wrestled with God.

I’m looking forward to creating more unique and original copies of the title.  Here’s the first few I’ve produced:

I’m tinkering with the idea of getting an ISBN.  Perhaps when I find my groove I’ll look at Etsy.
But I’ll turn that page when I get there.

Come stop by and say hi on Family Day.  I’ll be setting up booth hawking a lot of merchandise:

- E for Everyone movie, soundtrack and Ts

- Raise Their Voice prayer booklets, Justice publications, and perhaps a few photographs

- Save Africa Now DVD and paraphernalia

- Ten Silver Coins: The Drylings of Acchora

I’m also excited (if everything goes well) to roll out a brand new product: Fresh off the (coffee) press: copies of my hand crafted tome of poetry God/he

Can  one man do it all?  He’ll try.

Would love to see you between 10 AM – 4 PM on Monday, February 15!

Today is International Human Trafficking Awareness Day in the USA.  To mark the day I wanted to publish a poem I wrote a few years ago as I started to become aware and convinced that the suffering of the poor, the abused, and the oppressed is the suffering of Christ.

I submit it here as prayer and to remember today that so many suffer.  May we reach out hands of compassion that effect change.

oh how the children have fallen

oh how the children have
fallen

but not so far
and not so low
as you

who suffered them
to your knee

looked into their
eyes

spoke words
of destiny

light and transparent
as the wind

how the children have fallen

but not so hard
and hopelessly
as you

for the neck
on which hangs the
heavy miller’s stone
drown in the sea

treachery that their
sin

black stones

crafted in dark caverns
heavy and hard to move
would weigh on your
neck

suffer the open arms
that suffered the little ones

a yoke too brutal
to shoulder alone

and when the final
stone fell

fell and fell
for days

on impact
crushed you
with the weight of
all brutality
ever done against
once innocent
children

abuse that made them
old and marked
before the day they
learned to speak

there
for the first time
since the worlds were
formed
and you called forth
memory

not even a candle
with light
to see

the above poem is from God/he and is © 2010 andrew kooman