April 24, 2026—Main Street Rag has announced that it will publish, Diabetic Gumdrops, by Ephraim Scott Sommers later this year. From the prize-winning author of The Night We Set the Dead Kid on Fire and Someone You Love Is Still Alive, this is a book with a startling perspective on chronic illness.
Advance Praise: I’m completely jealous of the odes that make Diabetic Gumdrops such a passionate and profound book of poems on love, loss, and physical well-being.
~Jericho Brown, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Tradition
When Sommers walked into the doctor’s office on a Tuesday in June of 2024, he didn’t expect to walk out with one hundred needles, a pen full of insulin, and a continuous glucose monitor buried into the back of his arm. Like millions of other Americans, though, Sommers had been diagnosed with Type-1 Diabetes.
In writing Diabetic Gumdrops during the early days of his illness, Sommers says he was trying to force himself toward a mindset of gratitude that he wasn’t yet capable of in real life, “so the ode as a form became a place of hopeful destination.” In 24 poems of praise spread over 88 pages, readers will find all the praise and frustration and laughter and anger and thankfulness that might accompany any difficult medical challenge such as the one examined here.
The recipients of Sommers’ admiration in these praise poems are vast and imaginative. Readers will find him singing praise songs to needles, to the spouses of diabetics, to his phlebotomist, to tubing down a mountain stream, to his father’s guitar, to apocalypse Mondays, to broccoli, and even to how difficult it must be for doctors to deliver bad news. Sommers hopes this book might reach Diabetics of all types, their families and loved ones, and especially those who have been newly diagnosed or anyone struggling with illness.
“There are plenty of reasons to be upset about Diabetes, of course. It’s an absurd and ridiculous predicament to be in, but,” Sommers wants those reading to remember, “We are never without joy.”
Diabetic Gumdrops is available for pre-sale now at a special discounted rate of $9 (+shipping) here: https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/diabetic-gumdrops-ephraim-scott-sommers/.
For more information on Sommers, who is also a touring singer-songwriter and essayist, please visit: www.ephraimscottsommers.com.
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