Justin Hamm is the Poet Laureate of Missouri (2025–2027) and a 2026 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. He is the author of five books of poetry, including O Death and Drinking Guinness with the Dead: Poems 2007–2021, as well as the photography collection Midwestern. His work has appeared in Nimrod International Journal, The Midwest Quarterly, Sugar House Review, Verse Daily, Southern Indiana Review, Poets.org, and numerous other publications and anthologies. Hamm is the creator of Poet Baseball Cards and the founding editor of the museum of americana. A two-time Woody Guthrie Poet, TEDx speaker, photographer, and longtime Missouri educator, he has spent more than twenty years as a public school teacher and librarian. He lives and works in Mexico, Missouri, and his poems and photos draw deeply from the American Midwest.