With No Ground Beneath My Feet: New & Selected Works Volume II Hardcover – January 15, 2026

For more than half a century I’ve been walking the edges—between the sacred and the profane, the seen and the unseen, the personal and the universal. I’ve written from the crossroads where history, myth and daily life collide. Every poem, story, performance and collaboration has been an attempt to honor that collision—to translate the raw, wild pulse of being alive into words that sing, bleed and breathe.This collection brings together new works, from the past four years of living in my old writing cottage, on the outskirts of civilization, alongside selections from a lifetime of writing, performance and travel. The poems rise from coal mines and cornfields, from smoky clubs and university halls, from the deserts and highlands of my journeys around the world. They trace a life lived in devotion to poetry, music and the spirit of freedom.I’ve never had much interest in safety. Failure has been my greatest success. The ground has always shifted beneath my feet and I’ve learned to dance in that uncertainty. Each piece in this book is a footprint on that shifting earth—a moment of balance before the next leap.To those who have walked beside me—family, friends, fellow travelers, artists, outlaws, mystics, and dreamers—thank you.You’ve given me courage to keep leaping, to keep believing in the transformative power of poetry, art and love.This book is dedicated to everyone who dares to live truthfully, creatively and compassionately—with no ground beneath their feet.— Ron Whitehead, U.S. National Lifetime Beat Poet Laureate Read more