For Immediate Release…
Raymond Luczak’s New Poetry Book “Ironhood” Commemorates Growing Up in Ironwood, Michigan
“This book sees all. Not everything, but all. There’s a difference.” –John Lee Clark, author of How to Communicate
(Oct. 9, 2025) —Modern History Press proudly announces the release of Ironhood by acclaimed poet, playwright, and author Raymond Luczak. This moving collection of poems brings back to life the people and places of the Upper Peninsula (MI) that inhabit the depths of the author’s memory.
Author M. Bartley Seigel has called Michigan’s Upper Peninsula “a place much mythologized, but seldom seen and understood with any clarity of vision.” In Luczak’s Ironhood, readers get to see, hear, and feel the small town scene of the Upper Peninsula through the eyes of a Deaf, gay child in his formative years. Memories of growing up in a working-class town convey a unique blend of hardship, estrangement, and resilience.
In verse, Luczak revisits his hometown of Ironwood with unflinching honesty. He shares the way he remembers his family, classmates, and small-town life and thereby creates vivid portraits that balance grief and alienation with wonder, defiance, and the enduring power of poetry. By sharing his specific memories in the universal language of poetry, Luczak connects his past to the reader’s present—a bridge in time beyond rhythm and rhyme. And this bridge stands, above all, on emotional truth, which makes it so readily available to the reader: In his words:
It’s terribly important to be emotionally truthful when exploring lived experiences. Maybe one cannot always recall the precise facts, but emotional truth does matter. When people read poetry, they aren’t looking for factual reports, but they do want to experience emotional truth of whatever the poet is saying. Otherwise the writing may risk turning maudlin and meaningless.
Ironhood is the fourth book in the Yooper Poetry Series of the Modern History Press. It follows Luczak’s Chlorophyll, A Bigfoot Bestiary and Other Wonders by Martin Achatz, and most recently The Caving Grounds by Kathleen Heideman. Series editor Luczak, explains the initiative:
Most readers outside of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula aren’t aware that the U.P. has a growing body of literature, particularly poetry, that needs more attention. The Yooper Poetry Series (YPS) is our attempt to spotlight poets whose lives have been shaped and transformed by living in the U.P. at some point in their lives.
About the Author: Raymond Luczak is the author and editor of 38 books, including poetry, fiction, memoir, drama, and anthologies. His work as a Deaf gay writer has received international recognition for its candid exploration of identity, place, and resilience. He now lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Media Contact: Victor Volkman
Modern History Press
734-417-4266
publicity@modernhistorypress.com
