Great Balls of Doubt

Great Balls of Doubt gathers 96 of Mark Terrill’s poems and prose poems from limited-edition chapbooks and broadsides (many now sold out or no longer in print) and from hard-to-find journals and magazines, as well as his recent, previously uncollected work. Lavishly illustrated with 25 drawings by Jon Langford, Great Balls of Doubt delivers images and sentiments ranging from the real to the surreal to the elegiac, with no shortage of humor along the way. “Doubt is an unpleasant condition,” ­Voltaire once remarked, “but certainty is absurd.”

MARK TERRILL is a native Californian and former merchant seaman. He has lived in Germany since 1984, working by turns as a shipyard welder, a cook, for the post office, and as road manager for rock bands, all the while publishing numerous collections of poetry and prose, such as "Bread & Fish" (The Figures, 2002) and "Diamonds & Sapience" (Dark Style, 2017). His work has appeared in print and online in more than a thousand journals and anthologies, including City Lights Review, Bombay Gin, Empty Mirror, Jacket, Diagram, Rattle, RHINO, and Talisman, and been translated into French, German, and Portuguese. Terrill is also the English translator of Rolf Dieter Brinkmann ("An Unchanging Blue: Selected Poems 1962-75", Parlor Press, 2011).

JON LANGFORD is a musician and visual artist who lives in Chicago. Born in Newport, Wales, he first came to prominence with art/punk music collective the Mekons, who met at Leeds University in 1976 and have been performing together ever since; their most recent album is "Deserted" (2019). He has also released many recordings as a solo artist and with other bands (the Three Johns, the Waco Brothers, Four Lost Souls, and more). Langford’s art has been collected in two books, "Nashville Radio" (2006) and "Skull Orchard Revisited" (2010). In 2015 he was the artist in residence at the Country Music Hall of Fame, which commissioned him to paint a series of portraits for its exhibition “Dylan, Cash, and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City.” He is represented by Yard Dog Gallery in Austin, Texas.