Farmington resident Nathaniel Duggan’s debut book of poetry, “Death Egg,” has been published by Back Patio Press.

“Death Egg” is a collection of poems about unemployment, love, jellyfish, despair, and apocalypses. Each poem is a bleak, dense rumination on contemporary American life, creating both powerful levity and despair with its exploration of the banal through dramatic, video game-like conceits, honing in on the uniquely modern insanity of knowing everything and nothing all at once. These poems are built on decadent yet insightful juxtapositions like “tomorrow is Pizza Day / the Big Bang never happened” and “interplanetary bullshit, / this cosmic misfortune, this crow / at my birdfeeder. But no one / can chart the astrology / of the earth-destroying laser.” But they are also rife with the personal, the terrible introspection afforded to us in the dark hours after staring too long at the screen: “Either I’ve run out of things to conquer / or they’ve all run away from me”, and “send me to space / please, where I can be / the first virgin on the moon.” Cinematically tongue-in-cheek yet deeply earnest, unique yet relatable, this is the final egg: the death egg, fortress of loss and takeout receipts.

Duggan was born and raised in Maine and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Maine at Farmington. He has worked, among other things, as a video rental store cataloguer, a fish market cashier, and a mattress salesman. His writing has been nominated for various awards, including the Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions 2019 and a Pushcart in 2021.

The book is available to order online via Flat Dog Distro (flatdogdistro.bigcartel.com) or on Amazon.

Back Patio Press is a small, DIY press that focuses on weird writing outside the purview of established literary publishing. The press was founded in 2019 by Cavin B. Gonzalez, with an accompanying literary magazine. We published 10 books before taking a hiatus ~2022-2023, but have recently reopened. We publish slim volumes of poetry and literary fiction, typically by debut authors. We work directly with authors, customers, and, sometimes, book stores – no agents, distributors, or PR companies. For more information, contact publisher Zac Smith at backpatiopress@gmail.com or find them on the internet at backpatiopress.com or on X (formerly Twitter) or Instagram.

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