Tom C. Hunley is the author of Adjusting to the Lights (Rattle Chapbook Prize, 2020), What Feels Like Love: New and Selected Poems (C&R Press, 2021), and the short film You're Not Alone, from Forerunner TV. He has published in such literary journals as Atlanta Review, Crazyhorse, TriQuarterly, and Zone 3. His work has also been featured on Verse Daily, The Writer's Almanac, Poetry Daily, and Billy Collins' The Poetry Broadcast. He is a professor of English and Creative Writing at Western Kentucky University, where he has taught since 2003.
Reading Tom C. Hunley's The Loneliest Whale in the World is like talking with a best friend who is both hilarious and deeply sincere. Hunley's mind has the ability to mix together David Lee Roth, adopting a child, a surreal chili recipe, a diagnosis of an autoimmune disease, the persona of rock / paper / scissors, a son with autism, the inscription on Charles Bukowski's tombstone, aging, and skinny dipping to create a collection that makes us want to keep reading. This is Hunley's gift-to see the world through a prism where the light shines on everything. And this book is an absolute gem. -Kelli Russell Agodon, Dialogues with Rising Tides These poems are prayers, at times to God, at times to whoever might need what they offer. They are at once profound and quotidian, and the tension humming between those two poles is named compassion. It is hard-won, this compassion, yet Hunley wears it like a loose garment, which is one of the pleasures of this book. In the end these poems are a way to remind us that we are not alone, that there is a world inside this world, and it is beautiful. - Nick Flynn, low