Poet

For me, poetry is soul-speech, no matter how mundane or over-the-top the topic.

In my life, the practice of meditation and of poetry are closely aligned. They both require attentiveness and quietude — time to slow down and reflect and await an underlying intuition to surface. Sometimes, I even find that writing turns into prayer.

Paradoxically, much of my work over five decades has been drafted on the run and then intensely distilled, compressed, and refined via meditative discipline and clarity. I do like a jagged edge and a thesis-antithesis-synthesis setup, too, whether the subject at hand is love and relationships, the natural world, or social and cultural conditions.

Do note that I am fond of Ted Berrigan’s definition of a poem as a miniature wind-up toy and Robert Bly’s advocacy of Deep Image, along with a growing comprehension of metaphor rather than simile.

Onward, then.

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Full-length collections available in ebook platforms

As much as I love typography on notable paper, or even my memories of crude mimeographed typewriter ventures, I must point out the unique advantages and disadvantages of poetry in ebook formats. Remember, these are read on a variety of devices, from cell phones to personal computers. Each of them is dependent on the size of the screen.

An ebook is essentially a scroll, but it’s not the equivalent of a photo of a text, not even a Chinese or Japanese scroll of poetry. Indentations and floating lines are problematic. And, for clarity, I’ve been fond of those but realize they don’t translate into the digital formats.

But an ebook is much cheaper to produce than anything previously, at least through Smashwords, and much more widely available around the globe as well. Should I add that it’s also much more economical?

As a result, that’s why these full collections of my poems are now appearing via Smashwords.com and its affiliated digital retailers. Those outlets include the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, and Sony’s Kobo. And the collections are available on a variety of ebook platforms to match yours. You may also request the ebook from your local public library.

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COMING IN OCTOBER: Sometimes words and appearances mask deeper contradictory currents. Sometimes it’s a matter of nothing more than having different meanings for different people, even when they consider themselves soul mates.

The 60 liberated sonnets in this collection build on the image of a braid, something that appears to be two cords repeatedly crossing each other. In reality, however, the pattern conceals a third twist.

Which two lovers surface now? Just who remains in the dark?

Desire, deception, and self-deception all influence the intense relationship of the lovers here.

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COMING IN AUGUST: The Olympic Peninsula at the northwest corner of the continental United States is a remarkable and unique place, even as the fringe of a remarkable region of the country.

This longpoem originates in an off-season week of camping and exploring its wilderness coast and mountainous interior, an experience enhanced by Indigenous perspectives. For me, coming from the Midwest, its dense rainforests, tangled shoreline, and hot springs presented an epiphany and a turning point for me as a writer, especially.

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What began as an exercise in self-definition somehow broke out into an entire spectrum of personalities.

Do we know any of these people? How much are they like you or me? How much do they elude us, masked by the little that’s revealed?

None of the poems in this collection, do note, are portraits of known individuals, but rather the inventions of the poet’s craft and imagination, inspired in part by medieval stone carvers’ comical or terrifying exaggerations.

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These Blasts of Alarm and Rage, 1976-2008, were what I  couldn’t say in that period while employed as a serious journalist while the nation drifted further into an intensifying reactionary death grip. All that, even while I attempted to distance myself with my Sanskrit nom-de-plume.

This series of mostly polemic political poems – they’re not exactly protest songs, but I wouldn’t complain if they were – can be seen as my own most spontaneous, as well as most erratic. At least the poems are now being presented in a single volume rather than six chapbooks.

Holy moly.

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The blues and rock. A diamond. And love. With all of their confounding fire. Just feel the beat.

These expressions of contemporary passion contrast to the traditional English love poem. Our era and its expectations, after all, are much different than the ones that came before us. Just consider the state of modern marriage.

“I can’t live without you,” after all, is likely to be countered with, “So why aren’t you dead yet?” The police radio may dispatch an officer with the report, “He wants his girlfriend removed from the apartment. He doesn’t know her name.” Or a hopeful male with a tag, “Homeless romantic,” at a singles gathering may get the derision of a trio of females, “Sounds like an incurable venereal disease.”

Even so, the desire for the appropriate partner remains and, for those lucky enough, finds satisfaction.

The 80 pieces in Blue Rock, having appeared widely in literary journals around the globe, now stand complete.

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Thistle Finch editions

This is my private imprint, drawing on more than a thousand works that previously appeared in poetry journals and literary reviews around the world, plus many of my more recent writings. The site also includes photo albums and Quaker-related spirituality.

My work is admittedly experimental, contemporary, often edgy, and these volumes vary widely in subject and approach. Sometimes they remind me of graffiti or jazz, while others are as still and crystalline as morning dew.

Remember, these are free PDF editions. Feel free to share them as you wish, as long as you credit their author.

For the current lineup, visit my Thistle Finch blog.

And more …

The animal kingdom runs across the earth, into the sky, deep in the sea, even under the ground and through the human psyche. People, too, participate in this community of creatures. Our hearts, especially, beat with the rhythm.

The 20 poems comprising In a Heartbeat dance across this interplay, from television cartoon characters to ancient mythology and the many lessons and inspirations in between.

The poems are often playful, filled with wonder and appreciation for the varied life that envelops us.

This 35-page echapbook is available free from the Barometric Pressures author series at Kind of a Hurricane Press.

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During National Poetry Month 2013, the Origami Poems Project in Rhode Island released my Waves Rolling Too as a micro-chapbook. The four pieces embody six micropoems based in the Atlantic Seacoast of Cape Code and Maine.

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Harbor of Grace, a chapbook of prose-poems from Fowlpox Press, is in memory of my close friend Charles Subock. They arise in the three years I lived in Baltimore.

The prose-poem, I should note, is a unique genre deserving more exploration. My approach here keeps the pieces short — under 100 words apiece — while infusing them with the synaptic leaps and intense imagery of their poetic aspirations.

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One paperback chapbook of love-related poems is no longer in print, but used copies may be available online.

The cover painting is by Richard Brown Letham.

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A smattering of what others have said of my poems

“Jnana Hodson tells many tales in the course of a single poem, sometimes giving us more info than others who drone on for 300-plus pages in their long-winded and shallow novels.” – The Hold, autumn 2005

“I get so many interesting impressions. The wordplay is great. The poems are complex, heady without needing to prove it.” – Brendon Backaus, editor of getunderground.com

Jnana “attempts to solve the problems of a new nature poetry. Reticent poetry, careful not to offend its object. Like haiku growing out of each other. The white dog like a koan, enigmatic.” – Robert Novak, Windless Orchard, spring 1976

“I’m particularly drawn to three examples from Jnana Hodson’s ‘Sun Spot’ series (numbers 34, 32, and 24). Each is a little concrete poem that uses very little text, and I can’t figure any of them out. Maybe that (and their clean visual style) is the source of my attraction.” – Geof Hugh, dbqp: visualizing poetics, 2005

Jnana presents “a beautifully succinct, metaphysical vision of a child’s wonder and being.” – Julia Pearson, New Hampshire Writers’ Project review posted online, 2002

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Many of my works can also be found in literary journals online.

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Here I am at the fisherman’s statue in downtown Eastport, just a few blocks from my home. As my poetry and fiction reflect, mine’s been a zig-zag journey from my native Midwest to the East Coast and then, by degrees, to the Pacific Northwest and eventually to New England. It hasn’t always been easy, but it’s ultimately been rich.