Overview

This collection spans ten years-2015 to 2025-of Solonche's short poems, those with twelve lines or fewer. ""These short poems are an extraordinary amalgam of wit, close observation, humor, and clear-seeing. Each one singles out and illuminates an ordinary moment-ordinary, that is, until the poet explodes into a miniature epiphany. Easy of access and frequently profound, J. R. Solonche's poems induce in me a state of delighted surprise."" (Chase Twichell, author of Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been: New and Selected Poems)

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9781962082686

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Reviews

""The poems of J. R. Solonche catch the reader off-guard in playful profundity. While always mindful of the tradition of poetry masquerading as direct statement (the like of W. C. Williams, Robert Bly, Robert Creeley, and Charles Bukowski), J. R. Solonche nevertheless 'makes it new' through his masterful use of understatement, aphorism, word play and anaphora-raising poem after thoughtful poem from the familiar and often overlooked 'little things' of the poet's day-to-day encounter with the world.""-Phillip Sterling, author of And Then Snow ""In a style that favors brevity and pith, J. R. Solonche brings a richness of experience, observation, and wit into his poems. Here is the world! they exclaim. And here and here and here! Watched over by ancient lyric gods-Time, Death, and Desire-we find the quotidian here transformed.""-Christopher Nelson, editor of Green Linden Press ""Solonche, an accomplished poet, employs various forms in this compilation, including haiku, prose poem, and free verse. The poems often imaginatively enter into the natural or material world via anthropomorphic similes . . . Many works have an aphoristic quality that recall Zen koans, and they can be playfully amusing or even silly . . . A strong set of sympathetic but never sentimental observations.""-Kirkus Reviews ""All I need to say about J. R. Solonche's poems is that they are good, really, really good. So much so that they have a high ""I-wish-I'd-written-that"" factor. That's a compliment I hand out to very few poets writing today.""--John Murphy, editor of The Lake Contemporary Poetry Webzine ""Sample one by one these epigrammatic, epiphenomenal, Epicurean episodes as if they were puffs from a tower of pastry. Savor the zest of lemon, the pinch of sea salt, the dollop of crème fraiche, and the absence of any more sugar than necessary to ease the ingestion of truth. A feast for fanatics of language and lovers of pith.""-Sarah White, author of Iridescent Guest ""Solonche is productive and prolific, but that doesn't water down his poetry . . . He can compress a philosophical treatise into three lines . . . His epigrammatic tidy poems are philosophic gems. Solonche sees humor and encapsulates it; he frames a thought in perfect verse.""-Grace Cavalieri, Washington Independent Review of Books

Author Information

Nominated for the National Book Award, the Eric Hoffer Book Award, and nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize, J.R. Solonche is the author of more than forty books of poetry and coauthor of another. He lives in the Hudson Valley.

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