by debora Ewing
For most of my life, the work of Richard Martin has been missing from my life. Or maybe, like a hobo, he was always there, just out of focus, making observations, waiting for you to notice or ask what he’s observed.
Richard Martin is the name on all the books – Boink!, Dream of Long Headdresses, Fungo Appetite, Under the Sky of No Complaint, Strip Meditation, The White Quartet, the recently released Chapter and Verse, among others – an impressive body of work spanning decades. I haven’t met him in person yet, so I don’t feel qualified to call him Dick, as his friends do. Dick Martin is almost another entity in my mind, a separate archetype, as a good friend to my friend & mentor, Peter Kidd. The way Pete said his name held import in lack of modifiers.
“Dick’s coming by,” he said with little explanation, but I could hear over the phone how important the visit was to Pete. Together in Canyon, Texas, they went over Pete’s magnum opus, The Human Condition, to be published posthumously by Spuyten Duyvil press.
Dick’s the guy who came through for me when I wanted a copy of Pete’s publication, Cells of Fancy.
“I’ll make you a copy,” he said, and he did. He included a handwritten anecdote, what Pete would call grail. In this way, Dick Martin introduced me to tiny publications like unarmed journal and Rinky Dink Press. I shared my findings in this blog post on micro-words. But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here to talk about The White Quartet.
The White Quartet was conceived by Dick Martin with Peter Kidd. Hobo Return is the last in the four-chapbook series. The first in the White Quartet series, Hard Labor, came out in 2019, with Cosmic Sandbox released later that year. Sighting Icarus came out in 2020, with Martin dedicating this third in the quartet In Memoriam to Peter Kidd, a gesture of love and friendship for his fellow poet.
The final book in this series, Hobo Return (2021), rounds out the vision of a poet in awe of being in the world. Please join us Sunday, May 1, 2022 on Facebook LIVE for the launch of Hobo Return, with reading by the author Richard Martin and recording of his lifelong friend and our founder, Peter Kidd. Bring cookies; join in the discussion.
Just go to the Igneus Press Facebook, Instagram or Youtube page on
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Sunday May 1st at 3:30 pm PST, 6:30 EST
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Go to the Facebook LIVE launch: https://buff.ly/3KWPvca
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Richard Martin’s most recent work is Hobo Return(Igneus Press, 2021, the fourth in the White Quartet series begun with Igneus founder Peter Kidd in 2018), Chapter and Verse (Spuyten Duyvil, 2021), and Ceremony of the Unknown (Spuyten Duyvil, 2020). Martin is also the author of Goosebumps of Antimatter(Spuyten Duyvil, 2018), Techniques in the Neighborhood of Sleep (Spuyten Duyvil, 2018) and the short story collections Altercations in the Quiet Car and Buffoons in the Gene Pool from (Lavender Ink Press/Fell Swoop). Martin is a past recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship for Poetry. He lives in Boston with his family.
Further Reading by Richard Martin:
Chapter and Verse at Spuyten Duyvil – Richard Martin’s collection of poetry and prose.
Rinky Dink Press presents ten new poets twice annually in their fantastic tiny earth-friendly format. Submit your work Here. You can purchase Series 5 – ten poets for $10.00, including Democritus Highball – here.
Richard Martin’s Boink! at Lavender Ink – You can purchase the .pdf version. Boink! is also currently available in paperback.
