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Tom Sawyer
Written while working at a bookstore in lower Manhattan, TOM SAWYER is a book of poems about heartbreak, depression, family, role models and heroes, and growing up in America.
It is as if you approached Joseph Grantham while he was sleeping & nudged him & he rolled over half asleep & told you about all of the things that embarrass him, all of the people he loves, & all of the things that make him who he is.
It’s like a package of candy cigarettes or the Candide of the 21st century.
"If you buy this book, your money will go to a nice guy with a mustache. Which is a lot better than spending your money on coffee or whatever. Anyways, it’s good poetry. Love, Mira."
—Mira Gonzalez, author of i will never be beautiful enough to make us beautiful together
"In TOM SAWYER, Joseph Grantham is pulling it all back and stripping the language clean. These are poems about broken hearts and growing up, packed full of jokes and weirdo thoughts from a weirdo mind. When I think about Joseph Grantham, I think, ‘Ah…finally…the last living person who doesn’t judge or shout for a living.’ What sweet poems, from a sweet sweet man."
—Scott McClanahan, author of The Sarah Book
It is as if you approached Joseph Grantham while he was sleeping & nudged him & he rolled over half asleep & told you about all of the things that embarrass him, all of the people he loves, & all of the things that make him who he is.
It’s like a package of candy cigarettes or the Candide of the 21st century.
"If you buy this book, your money will go to a nice guy with a mustache. Which is a lot better than spending your money on coffee or whatever. Anyways, it’s good poetry. Love, Mira."
—Mira Gonzalez, author of i will never be beautiful enough to make us beautiful together
"In TOM SAWYER, Joseph Grantham is pulling it all back and stripping the language clean. These are poems about broken hearts and growing up, packed full of jokes and weirdo thoughts from a weirdo mind. When I think about Joseph Grantham, I think, ‘Ah…finally…the last living person who doesn’t judge or shout for a living.’ What sweet poems, from a sweet sweet man."
—Scott McClanahan, author of The Sarah Book
- GenresPoetry
124 pages, Paperback
Published September 10, 2018
87 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Grantham
2 books55 followersJoseph Grantham is the author of Tom Sawyer (CCM Press, 2018) and Raking Leaves (Holler Presents, 2019). He lives in America.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 30, 2018
Joey moved in during the last heatwave. He slept on an air mattress in our spare room for five weeks. No air conditioning. There wasn’t any other furniture in that room. Just the air mattress. Maybe a lamp. A blue room. The loudest room in America. He was 23, had a mustache, and Jim Morrison hair. One or two days a week he wore a vertically striped pastel shirt called his ‘fun shirt’.
“What’s up Bud,” he’d say walking down the hallway in his white boxer shorts and the fun shirt.
“What’s up, Joey,” I’d say putting coffee on.
He worked on his poetry at my kitchen table when I wasn’t home, maybe. He had written a hundred poems on scraps of paper and bookmarks at his job at McNally Jackson, a job he was quitting because working in a bookstore sucks. He was a clerk there, stocked shelves, sometimes he ran events in the basement. He told me that all the girls who came in looking like supermodels usually bought Argonauts by Maggie Nelson.
We weren’t charging Joey rent because his room was like a small prison cell. NYC had made him miserable. All his poems were all about being super sad because of an unrequited love. Or about his family. Or about his friends. Or about his job at the bookstore. Or about make believe stuff that was really fun. His stuff had a little bit of 'fuck you' in it without being mean. The common denominator in all his work, was that it was transcendent.
I don't know. I read a lot of books. I would never be friends with someone who's work I didn't think was really good. Never in a million years would I let somebody come and live in my house if they were an artist I didn't think was brilliant.
Joey let me read his poems, I let him read the book I was working on. He'd sit on one couch in one room and I'd sit on one couch in the other room. I'd hear him laugh like crazy. "What's funny?"
And then he'd hear me laugh and he'd yell, "What's funny?"
That's a good question. What's funny?
If you ask Joey, New York City isn't funny.
The Big Apple was the biggest love that didn’t love you back that I knew.
Jersey City would save his soul, I figured. I was right.
I went to work every work day, and Rae went to work every work day, and Joey went to work every work day. At night we all got drunk and listened to records. He'd tell me and Rae about girls he had crushes on. And we'd tell Joey that crushing was an admirable thing to be doing. Crushing, crushing, all the live long day. He'd tell us about some crush that'd come into the bookstore looking so beautiful it was hard to take, and he'd watch the crush drift over to the N section and she'd reach down and pull up Argonauts and then crush her way to the register and then crush her way out of the store.
One day the heat finally broke, and summer seemed over. We went out for breakfast at a place that had wrought iron tables welded to the restaurant wall. We sat in wrought iron chairs welded to the the restaurant or anchored into the ground. While we were sitting there eating eggs and bacon, he got a message that Civil Coping mechanisms wanted to put out his first book of poems. This book of poems. They had an early version of it.
That was exciting. I'm not sure if it had a title at that point. I know at one point it was called 'Forthcoming from Hobart', because Joey was trying to get Hobart/SFLD to put it out and that title was really funny. Like, really presumptuous. There's nothing better than being presumptuous and not taking yourself totally seriously. I don't know, maybe 'Forthcoming from Hobart' was just something that we said when we were wasted. An inside joke. I don't know if he submitted it that way. Maybe the early version of Tom Sawyer CCM wanted to publish was called 'Forthcoming from CCM' in their inbox.
I like that though, I like the idea of submitting something to Wave Books, "Hey check out my manuscript 'Forthcoming from Wave Books', lemme know what you think."
But here was this message from Civil Coping Mechanisms and that was cause for celebration ... Seidlinger wanted to talk to Joey about the book, the possibilities of it. Later that night he called Joey on the phone and they talked about it for nearly three hours, Joey sitting on the air mattress in the blue prison cell that me and Rae had for him, free of charge.
But that morning, we were not too far from the Holland Tunnel. I said, “Now that you’re a Jersey City poet, everybody is suddenly interested!”
He winked at me. He did some great big heaving Steve Urkle laugh, and maybe would have pulled the table over but it was welded down. Rae almost spit her coffee out. Everybody was suddenly happy and we ordered breakfast beers to celebrate Joey’s success.
It feels good to make art and it feels good when people care about your art. I care about Joey's art for my own selfish reasons, his art inspires me. Reading his work makes me want to make my own work. I recognize that in all my favorite writers and musicians and painters. I can't do what they do, but I can do what I do, and I can do what I do because I've just experienced what they do and it has lit me on fire to make my own art.
The next day while walking home from work Joey was almost squashed flat by a maroon Toyota Tercel. He’d gotten off the PATH train and was walking back to our apartment with a bag of pastries in his hand. At the intersection of JFK Blvd and Montgomery Ave. a near-death experience tapped him on the shoulder. He had the walk signal and began to trot across the intersection, when in swooped the maroon Toyota, passing within inches of crushing Joey into a red paste. The driver pulled over just a few feet away and hung his head out the window, and said, “I almost kilt you, bro.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Killllt you, bro. Hahaha.”
“Thanks, yeah. That’s what happened.”
“Hahaha. Fucking killllt you, bro. You fucking lucky. Dead little bro, hahaha.” The maroon Toyota moved along, Joey adventured the rest of the way to our apartment. A survivor. He was just one of the ordinary heroes of the block we all lived on.
I was writing at my desk when he walked in the apartment, looking distraught. He then told me the story that I just told you and I said, “It’s too dangerous to walk around around here. Cars flying everywhere. Forget about riding a bike. What’s with the bag?”
“They let us take home the leftover pastries they don’t sell for the day.”
The bookstore also had a pastry case because people liked books, sure, but they didn't buy them. They came in and looked at the books and then while in the store they ordered them from Amazon.
I said, "Your bookstore doesn't donate the leftovers to the homeless people?”
“They do, but—”
“The people who work in the store get dibs over the homeless.”
“Yeah.”
“Well what do you have?”
He opened the bag. There were two butter cookies, a croissant, and half a brownie. I reached in and took one of the butter cookies, to be polite, leaving the brownie and the croissant in there. Any sensible person, looking out for themselves, would have taken the brownie or the croissant. I bit into the butter cookie.
“I can’t believe you didn’t take the brownie, man.”
I laughed. I had a mouth full of cookie. “I was being polite.”
He shook his head and I almost choked on that cookie, god damn. Hahaha. I'm lucky to be alive.
“What’s up Bud,” he’d say walking down the hallway in his white boxer shorts and the fun shirt.
“What’s up, Joey,” I’d say putting coffee on.
He worked on his poetry at my kitchen table when I wasn’t home, maybe. He had written a hundred poems on scraps of paper and bookmarks at his job at McNally Jackson, a job he was quitting because working in a bookstore sucks. He was a clerk there, stocked shelves, sometimes he ran events in the basement. He told me that all the girls who came in looking like supermodels usually bought Argonauts by Maggie Nelson.
We weren’t charging Joey rent because his room was like a small prison cell. NYC had made him miserable. All his poems were all about being super sad because of an unrequited love. Or about his family. Or about his friends. Or about his job at the bookstore. Or about make believe stuff that was really fun. His stuff had a little bit of 'fuck you' in it without being mean. The common denominator in all his work, was that it was transcendent.
I don't know. I read a lot of books. I would never be friends with someone who's work I didn't think was really good. Never in a million years would I let somebody come and live in my house if they were an artist I didn't think was brilliant.
Joey let me read his poems, I let him read the book I was working on. He'd sit on one couch in one room and I'd sit on one couch in the other room. I'd hear him laugh like crazy. "What's funny?"
And then he'd hear me laugh and he'd yell, "What's funny?"
That's a good question. What's funny?
If you ask Joey, New York City isn't funny.
The Big Apple was the biggest love that didn’t love you back that I knew.
Jersey City would save his soul, I figured. I was right.
I went to work every work day, and Rae went to work every work day, and Joey went to work every work day. At night we all got drunk and listened to records. He'd tell me and Rae about girls he had crushes on. And we'd tell Joey that crushing was an admirable thing to be doing. Crushing, crushing, all the live long day. He'd tell us about some crush that'd come into the bookstore looking so beautiful it was hard to take, and he'd watch the crush drift over to the N section and she'd reach down and pull up Argonauts and then crush her way to the register and then crush her way out of the store.
One day the heat finally broke, and summer seemed over. We went out for breakfast at a place that had wrought iron tables welded to the restaurant wall. We sat in wrought iron chairs welded to the the restaurant or anchored into the ground. While we were sitting there eating eggs and bacon, he got a message that Civil Coping mechanisms wanted to put out his first book of poems. This book of poems. They had an early version of it.
That was exciting. I'm not sure if it had a title at that point. I know at one point it was called 'Forthcoming from Hobart', because Joey was trying to get Hobart/SFLD to put it out and that title was really funny. Like, really presumptuous. There's nothing better than being presumptuous and not taking yourself totally seriously. I don't know, maybe 'Forthcoming from Hobart' was just something that we said when we were wasted. An inside joke. I don't know if he submitted it that way. Maybe the early version of Tom Sawyer CCM wanted to publish was called 'Forthcoming from CCM' in their inbox.
I like that though, I like the idea of submitting something to Wave Books, "Hey check out my manuscript 'Forthcoming from Wave Books', lemme know what you think."
But here was this message from Civil Coping Mechanisms and that was cause for celebration ... Seidlinger wanted to talk to Joey about the book, the possibilities of it. Later that night he called Joey on the phone and they talked about it for nearly three hours, Joey sitting on the air mattress in the blue prison cell that me and Rae had for him, free of charge.
But that morning, we were not too far from the Holland Tunnel. I said, “Now that you’re a Jersey City poet, everybody is suddenly interested!”
He winked at me. He did some great big heaving Steve Urkle laugh, and maybe would have pulled the table over but it was welded down. Rae almost spit her coffee out. Everybody was suddenly happy and we ordered breakfast beers to celebrate Joey’s success.
It feels good to make art and it feels good when people care about your art. I care about Joey's art for my own selfish reasons, his art inspires me. Reading his work makes me want to make my own work. I recognize that in all my favorite writers and musicians and painters. I can't do what they do, but I can do what I do, and I can do what I do because I've just experienced what they do and it has lit me on fire to make my own art.
The next day while walking home from work Joey was almost squashed flat by a maroon Toyota Tercel. He’d gotten off the PATH train and was walking back to our apartment with a bag of pastries in his hand. At the intersection of JFK Blvd and Montgomery Ave. a near-death experience tapped him on the shoulder. He had the walk signal and began to trot across the intersection, when in swooped the maroon Toyota, passing within inches of crushing Joey into a red paste. The driver pulled over just a few feet away and hung his head out the window, and said, “I almost kilt you, bro.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Killllt you, bro. Hahaha.”
“Thanks, yeah. That’s what happened.”
“Hahaha. Fucking killllt you, bro. You fucking lucky. Dead little bro, hahaha.” The maroon Toyota moved along, Joey adventured the rest of the way to our apartment. A survivor. He was just one of the ordinary heroes of the block we all lived on.
I was writing at my desk when he walked in the apartment, looking distraught. He then told me the story that I just told you and I said, “It’s too dangerous to walk around around here. Cars flying everywhere. Forget about riding a bike. What’s with the bag?”
“They let us take home the leftover pastries they don’t sell for the day.”
The bookstore also had a pastry case because people liked books, sure, but they didn't buy them. They came in and looked at the books and then while in the store they ordered them from Amazon.
I said, "Your bookstore doesn't donate the leftovers to the homeless people?”
“They do, but—”
“The people who work in the store get dibs over the homeless.”
“Yeah.”
“Well what do you have?”
He opened the bag. There were two butter cookies, a croissant, and half a brownie. I reached in and took one of the butter cookies, to be polite, leaving the brownie and the croissant in there. Any sensible person, looking out for themselves, would have taken the brownie or the croissant. I bit into the butter cookie.
“I can’t believe you didn’t take the brownie, man.”
I laughed. I had a mouth full of cookie. “I was being polite.”
He shook his head and I almost choked on that cookie, god damn. Hahaha. I'm lucky to be alive.
September 5, 2018
i wrote this book.
i was sad when i wrote it.
i wrote most of it while i was at work.
i was working at a bookstore at the time.
i wrote most of it on bookmarks or scraps of paper.
i hope you enjoy reading the book if you decide to read the book.
i was sad when i wrote it.
i wrote most of it while i was at work.
i was working at a bookstore at the time.
i wrote most of it on bookmarks or scraps of paper.
i hope you enjoy reading the book if you decide to read the book.
December 20, 2018
I remember once in college Joey and I were walking to the dining hall across commons lawn and he made a joke about how silly it was that book blurbs would describe a writer's prose as "dizzying." Like, I would love to read a book that's going to make me fucking dizzy... These poems made me remember that joke, maybe because it's kind of a hypochondriac's joke and this is kind of a hypochondriac's book, and maybe also because I miss those walks with Joey and this book is the closest I can come to them for now. In general, this is a good example of something positive and entertaining made out of loneliness, fear, and retail malaise. I think it is also a grateful reaching out of arms / phantom limbs. It made me want to be closer and more honest with the people I love.
Do have a look.
Do have a look.
October 24, 2018
I read a bunch of these poems out loud to my students. I don't teach poetry I mostly teach how to do research. They thought it was a real nice break from the boring stuff and they laughed. "how is that a poem?" some of them said, because their only experience of poetry was high school stuff with hard rhymes or overwrought metaphors about horses and paths, nothing new or alive or vital. But this stuff is real, it's idle melancholy with a deep vein of hope. I liked it a bunch.
September 30, 2018
i enjoyed these poems. there's a lot of good stuff in here. this book really rang my bell.
May 18, 2019
There is much to like here in the honesty and irreverence, but also much more to come I hope. A well-named book there.
October 26, 2018
Read this lil thing while on my lunch break at work. Between bites of canned dolmas and stale brioche, I sucked down these poems one by one. Joey had some poems in here, some made me laugh, and some made want to give him a hug. I was happy to see poems about work. I understood those poems and they understood me. I knew Joey once, he was sweet, and these poems are sweet too.
May 19, 2019
I read this one day when I wasn't feeling great about life and it made me feel better stuck in my feeling that life is often boring, random, absurd, stupid, sad and goofy. These poems are short, full of wit and totally convincing, daydream-like trains of thought. At times they felt like thoughts I would have if I stopped trying to pep myself up or "push through" my day but let my mind wander more. Which is to say I really related to these poems.
October 7, 2019
I ordered this book after hearing Joseph Grantham on the otherppl podcast. It arrived last night. I stayed up late reading 3/4 of it. I read the rest of it this morning. There are poems about riding the bus and going to work. There's sad poems and poems that genuinely made me laugh which isn't something poems do very often. A bunch of the poems use the names of people Joseph Grantham knows and I really liked that, I liked seeing how he sees those people. I wish I read this while drinking coffee.
October 5, 2018
This book is funny and sad and weird and relatable. You should read it if you haven’t or read it again if you already have.
December 18, 2018
"i had a dream last night
hang on
the dream was only one sentence long"
hang on
the dream was only one sentence long"
March 25, 2020
Funny, sweet, and sad. Just what I needed to read right now.
May 27, 2020
I am discovering what a poem can be. It can be a page of the book. It can be the whole book.
November 28, 2020
A nice man with a mustache wrote this book of poems. And I liked it very much.
October 11, 2021
A pleasant Richard Brautigan pastiche
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews