Tom Waits releasing book of poetry about the homeless

Tom Waits will make his publishing debut with Hard Ground, a book of poetry described as a “portrait of homelessness” featuring Waits’ words alongside photographs by award-winning photojournalist Michael O’Brien of “people who ‘live on the hard ground.’” (You can see some preview images here.) Waits, whom the New York Times once called “the poet of outcasts,” will put his years of experience chronicling life’s various vagabonds toward capturing the “common humanity” of O’Brien’s subjects, in a book due out in March from the University of Texas Press. It will then adorn the coffee tables of very serious people.