RUMFORD — Rumford author, editor and poet Tom Fallon has published a new book, “Creation Now With Words,” that in his own words “injects an avant-garde direction into the Maine literary scene.”

Fallon, an octogenarian and former millworker, is well known in Maine literary circles for his experimentation with words. “Creation Now With Words” is subtitled “A primer presenting literary evolution based on the great revolution in art during the early 20th century.”

And indeed the book presents some of his unpublished works and some previously published works headlined with descriptions of his intentions. One example: “Complete use of whole page space, no margin considerations, word, phrase, sentence spacing improvised,” he writes above his composition “girl in a small town.”

The overarching theme of the 53-page book is creative freedom, and he quotes numerous well-known artists, musicians and writers — from Cezanne to Marianne Moore to Debussy — on artistic expression and experimentation.

The book’s Forward starts: “‘Creation Now With Words’ is a primer for encouraging independent thought and research relative to literary, word, form. . . ” and among others Fallon quotes Russian abstract art pioneer Wassily Kandinsky as saying “There is no must in art because art is free.”

In Fallon’s Afterword he notes, “A writer must always be free to create a new literary form or to choose traditional literary forms. A writer, as individual, must always he free to create.”

The final page of his book offers:

I am creation.                              You are creation.

Tom Fallon

Fallon’s first published work was “Through A Stranger’s Eyes, Selected Poems, Half-poems and Non-Poems,” followed by “Pregnant Man I,” “The Man on the Moon” and “NOW, Poetry and Antipoetry.” He has served as a poetry editor of the Maine Times and sat on the board of directors of the early Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.

“Creation Now With Words” is published by Goose River Press and Transition Books.

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