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""Poetry is language at play. In New Songs of Innocence S.J. Hodson is hard at work in this playground teasing us with syllabic verse (""Beside Himself with Calm""), haiku stanzas (""A Cougar Strolled By""), sonnet, (""Sonnet for Miriam""), and villanelle (""A Poet's Dark Night of the Soul""). He relishes the natural rhythm of speech and knows how to polish it metrically. He rhymes in wonderfully complex ways, combining end rhyme, internal rhyme, slant rhyme, sight rhyme and the unexpected sudden break from rhyme. But poetry isn't just play, however clever. Language is a serious matter. It's not working unless it opens us up to our world. Beauty is at once at odds with and requires truth. In this ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy, S.J. Hodson comes down squarely on both sides. At its best poetry teaches without preaching. If Blake's Songs of Innocence calls established religion into question to recover wonder at the religious spirit that gives birth to it, Hodson's New Songs of Innocence means to call into question science, the established religion of our time, to wonder again at what gives birth to it, the scientific spirit. […] [Hodson] writes not so much to please his audience as to tease and teach his audience-and what a pleasure it is to be taught this way. Making poetry is for him serious-a way to think, a way to wonder. But he is also masterful at playfully seducing others to wonder. If 'philosophy begins in wonder,' these poems are invitations to philosophize. S.J. Hodson is one of the most interesting and talented poets of his generation, and yet he remains known to only a very few. In New Songs of Innocence, we are graced with his first published book of poetry. We should be thankful and hope it will not be his last."" Taken from the Introduction by Michael Davis

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9781587315541

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S.J. Hodson’s poems have a wonderful clarity to them. Film director Stanley Kubrick talked about bringing the focus and mindfulness of chess to the making of a film. Hodson’s poems have the same quality. Technically, Hodson is a first-class wordsmith – especially his use of rhyme, which is often sly, and always organic to the poem. These are poems about being conscious and aware in the world. “Sometimes we’re at life/the same way dogs are/at a concert,” Hodson writes, “We hear all the sounds/and none of the music.” Add poems such as “Epictetus Country Western Song,” a powerful meditation on the fleeting quality of happiness, and you get a book that sings even in trying times. — Marc Sheehan New Songs of Innocence connects the natural world to the poetic imagination, to the world of ideas, and to experience here on earth. Hodson’s range of subjects is wide; the book’s structure is original; his métier is praise. This is a book worth reading and re-reading. Richard Widerkehr — author of three books of poetry: At the Grace Café; Night Journey; and Missing the Owl In New Songs of Innocence, S. J. Hodson observes nature with a unique and vivid logic. Part of the charm of Hodson’s poetry is that it is not poetical in the current trend. His language can be dense and angular — in his phrase, a “lacquered loquacity” — with rewards of wisdom and wit for the reader.  Gerry McFarland — author of three books of poetry: The Making; Gunner; and Code Blue.   In New Songs of Innocence, S. J. Hodson’s nuanced observations of nature yield a glimpse into the lives of trees, birds, squirrels, deer and cougars. Similarly, his poems record moments from his own life, in the kitchen, at war, and in love, providing a profound glimpse into the human condition. Ené Lewis – a working artist since 1961.   Almost every morning for the past five years I have been waking to a new poem from Stan Hodson in my email inbox. Those poems — some of them collected here in New Songs of Innocence — set the tone for my day. Stan sees the world and everything in it with the eyes of a young child and a wise old man. His deep knowledge of physics and biology commingles with an understanding of human nature and an unusual personal history to create poems that startle, occasionally make me laugh out loud, and always make me think. Stan Hodson is one of our era’s best poets. Susan Bennerstrom – painter and celebrant of light, www.susanbennerstrom.com  

Author Information

S. J. Hodson studied with Annie Dillard and completed his thesis, a collection of poems called Beside Ourselves With Calm. In 1984, a long poem from that collection, “Movement in a Solid—a Composite Figure of the Poet in the 20th Century” (included in this volume) was awarded a Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry by Nimrod literary journal. 

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