This is a place you never hear about in America...

A unique American collection of poetry, Whaling Town explores the rough work of self-realization and the roots that anchor us to the unsteady ground of our past.

Facing a turning point in his life, David Parker Allen began traversing the landscape of the United States, researching and writing music and assembling the bones of a collection of poetry. His journey led him through a personal family immigrant story in New Bedford, Massachusetts—the whaling town Melville made famous—to small communities across the Mississippi Delta and deep South, Gulf Coast, and Mountain West, as well as the streets of Chicago and New York. Jumping from rural America to urban hubs and back, Whaling Town tells a story of place and people in a gritty world that’s both in and out of our control.

With clear-eyed observations and gentle musicality, Allen takes stock of the burden of our collective history and looks directly into passing storms that we each must face alone. When the skies clear, how do we come to terms with self and our place in this world, and what do we build from the wreckage?