On February 18th SAIGON KICK frontman Matt Kramer held an official poetry book release party for his new book, entitled A Book Of Poems From The Smallest Of Towns, at Books And Books in Coral Gables, Florida. He has checked in with the following update:

"A beautiful evening at my poetry book release at Books and Books. My first reading ever went much smoother than expected. Band played great. Thank you all who gathered and purchased a ton of books. You made my night."

Kramer recently spoke with BW&BK; scribe Carl Begai about his new book. An excerpt from the story is available below:

Kramer unwittingly borrowed a page from DEVIN TOWNSEND's recently executed assault, in which he wrote four albums simultaneously – each one completely different from its partners – and released them over a period of two years. Then again, Kramer has been chipping away at his five book project since 2007, so maybe Townsend is a mind-reader. Kramer’s second volume, A Book Of Poems From The Smallest Of Towns, is even more of a surprise than An American Profit.

“This new book is just my time, a lot of it spent in Nebraska,” Kramer reveals. “I went to Nebraska and stayed at a cottage. I spent a lot of time there, took many vacations there with family, and it just turned out that I wrote and wrote and kept on going. Not just about my surroundings, but about other small towns that I love as well. I was in this town of 340 people, and it’s a throwback to yesterday that is just so unique and different and charming. I made the best of it, I wrote about it, and made a charming little book. I don’t think I’ll ever put out something like this again, and I really don’t know how it came out of me. It’s a really cool book, and it doesn’t talk about fucking, or bucking religion. I’m always creating some kind of lyrical trouble, but this book doesn’t do that (laughs).”
“It was a really great experience for me – and I’ve told you this before – because it was me being totally out of my shoes. I was able to step back from me and have a snicker like everybody else does, and see where I’m at. It allowed me to see that there are other roads I can take, which is very important. I see a lot of guys, my colleagues, travelling the same old roads and coming across the same footprints; I don’t know if that’s healthy. I think you should do other things, not just the same old stuff.”

Go to this location for the complete interview.

A Book Of Poems From The Smallest Of Towns is now available via www.mattkramer.net. Kramer's first poetry book, An American Profit, is available below.