All Things in Common: Poems from The Farm

All

Things

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Common

All Things in Common by Georgia poet Rupert Fike is a vibrant, multi-voiced poetry collection chronicling the rise of The Farm-a 1970s commune in rural Tennessee founded by hippies and activists seeking to redefine the American Dream. Through poems that blend social and personal history, Fike captures the idealism, absurdity, and raw humanity of a countercultural movement that pushed boundaries, questioned norms, and embraced community. With his signature blend of dark humor, tenderness, and hopeful vision, Fike invites readers into a world where utopia was improvised, lived, and sometimes stumbled over-offering a timely reminder of the enduring power of collective dreaming.

Rupert Fike's All Things in Common is a multi-voiced account of how a group of hippies and activists took the American Dream further than it had ever gone before-perhaps further than it was ever meant to go-transforming a patch of Tennessee wilderness into a makeshift utopia called The Farm. It interweaves social history and personal history in poems that are readable, quirky, tender and hilarious, full of Fike's trademark dark humor as well as an unfathomable and unreasonable hope for us all that's steeped in the true spirit of the best of American dreaming, just when we need it most.

- Cecilia Woloch, award-winning poet, teacher, and recipient of NEA and Fulbright Foundation fellowships

About the Author

Rupert Fike left the University of Georgia in his junior year to work in the Peace and Civil Rights movements of the late 1960s. He and his wife, Kathy, moved to San Francisco, where they helped found The Farm, a spiritual community in middle Tennessee. They have two daughters and three grandchildren and currently reside in Clarkston, Georgia.

Rupert Fike's second collection of poems, Hello the House (Snake Nation Press) was named as one of the "Books All Georgians Should Read, 2018" by The Georgia Center for the Book. He was the finalist as Georgia Author of the Year after his first collection, Lotus Buffet (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2011). His stories and poems have appeared in The Southern Poetry Review, The Sun, The Main Street Rag, Kestrel, Scalawag Magazine, The Georgetown Review, A&U America's AIDS Magazine, The Flannery O'ConnorReview, Duende, The Buddhist Poetry Review, Natural Bridge and others. He was the editor of Voices From The Farm, a non-fiction title from The Book Publishing Company, 1997. He also has a poem inscribed in a downtown Atlanta plaza.