Tag: Poetry

How are you feeling about the trial’s revelations?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

You know the one I’m talking about. Even before getting to the others just ahead.

Let’s just say I’ve been watching this building up, step by step, for decades. The corruption by big money and trickery, the erosion of the middle class, the polarization, the sleaze, the breakdown of the checks and balances or a loyal opposition.

Working in the newsroom, I was bound to give both sides their voice, though one was doing everything it could to discredit us and those distortions went unchallenged. There was more, of course, going on in the dark, things we sensed but couldn’t prove outright.

Let’s just say I was outraged but had to keep it bottled up. But then, after retiring, I let it out by indulging in a stream of poetry I usually steered clear of – the polemic rant akin to Dr. Bronner’s Moral ABC or Allen Ginsberg’s The Fall of America collection or Phil Ochs’ protest folksongs.

The result is Trumpet of the Coming Storm.

While the pieces that spewed forth in my collection may look like history from the Reagan years through the Bushes, they do reflect the origins of what’s coming to a head today. Even the poems that can be considered sophomoric seem prescient.

There are good reasons I subtitled it Blasts of Alarm and Rage, 1976-2008.

Do take a look.

It’s available in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook retailers. You can also ask your public library to obtain it.

If you like people-watching and eavesdropping, check out this

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Today’s the release date for Hamlet: A Village of Gargoyles, and I’d love for you to check it out.

The 200-plus off-beat poems of my collection were composed well before I relocated to a real-life village and, by then, many of the pieces had appeared in literary journals around the globe. What I’ve seen since comes as confirmation.

And now they’re together in one volume, as originally intended.

The pages present candid, surreal, often humorous confessions by various community members who span the generations and occupations of an imaginary locale. They’re the kind you may chance upon in a comic strip, support group, or while walking the dog in your own neighborhood.

Opening the book can be like opening their door, for that matter.

You can find it in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook retailers. You can also ask your public library to obtain it.

Just in time for the new political season

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

My series of polemic political poems – they’re not exactly protest songs, but I wouldn’t complain if they were – has moved from Thistle Finch editions to Smashwords.com, where they’re now available in a range of ebook formats, hopefully for a wider readership.

In the transition, the poems are now presented in a single volume rather than six shorter chapbooks.

These blasts of alarm and rage, 1976-2008, are an emotional mirror of events leading up to today, a not-so-distant past that’s been intensifying toward devastation. Let them stand as a call for personal honesty and engagement, too.

Take heed, if you will.

For me, this also presents the excitement of my first book release since September/October ’22, when Quaking Dover appeared. It comes with an admission that these poems are largely spontaneous, as in combustion, and sometimes sophomoric. I’ll ride with that, considering the fervor of adolescence, including ambitions.

While the poems are rooted in recent history and its headlines, they’re more pertinent than ever.

Having originally appeared as six short chapbooks, this collection is now available on your choice of ebook platforms at Smashwords.com and its affiliated digital retailers. Those outlets include the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, and Sony’s Kobo. You may also request the ebook from your local public library.

Please take a look.

Vincent Katz and my little red journal

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

When I set about planning and packing for a week on the water last year, I knew I wouldn’t be bringing my laptop. The electrical power on the schooner was mostly from some powerful batteries and two small solar panels. We could charge our cell phones and had small lights in our cabins, but that was about it.

I did pack a Paris Review and a Harper’s magazine, should I feel like indulging in reading, but the heart of my “literary” life focused on a small red journal I had picked up a year or so earlier plus a few printouts of Vincent Katz poems that set a direction that has intrigued me.

Katz, like his father, the American painter Alex Katz, can look at mundane things in a seemingly flat tone that feels seminal.

Consider the line, “I wish I lived here but I do live here,” from “Francis Bacon.” It’s a feeling I know.

As he says in “Back on 8th Ave.”:

The job of the poet is not easy:
be utterly observant, tracking,
and to note down, in plain language,
with minimal emotional distortion,
what s/he sees.

 

For me, it had been ages since I’d sat down before a blank page and started off without any idea of where the words would be going. My usual journaling at least has a calendar full of events to catch up on, plus notes I’ve scribbled out, maybe even emails. And my more public writing has been things like this, with a purpose.

My goal was to fill the little notebook in a week. Quality or substance was not the measure. Just look and listen and try to be very much in the present moment.

It was a harder assignment than you might think. But it did provide much of the text for many of the posts you’ll be seeing this year.

Here are a few samples of what I entered:

looking for the obvious can be a challenge

 ~*~

Yellow house
behind a brown one
on a hill
flagpole and staircase
down to a wharf

the dreadful verses
you attempted
page after page
of aspiring youth
reached and fell

that stuff now is flatter
but more secure

likely no more profound
or less

don’t worry, Jnana, nothing’s happening
you’d think I could fill this small notebook with drivel in a week
but I’m halfway short

I did end the entries

[to be continued]

Hopefully, on an upcoming cruise in late summer.

Time in the creation of poetry and much else

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Robert Bly once said that to write a line of poetry requires two hours. Not so much for the actual writing.  Not even for the inspiration. Though certainly for the revision.  As well as compression and redistillation. And more revision.

His estimate, to me, seems quite optimistic.

I’m thinking it can be applied to many more examples of where human creative action is involved, too.

Go ahead, name one where you wish you had more time for the project.