Today's poem is "Toy Poem"
from Tomorrow, Today, and Yesterday
J.R. Solonche
is the author of Beautiful Day (Deerbrook Editions), Won't Be
Long (Deerbrook Editions), Heart's Content (Five Oaks Press), Invisible (nominated for the Pulitzer
Prize by Five Oaks Press), The Black Birch (Kelsay Books), I, Emily Dickinson & Other Found Poems
(Deerbrook Editions), In Short Order (Kelsay Books), Tomorrow, Today & Yesterday (Deerbrook
Editions), True Enough (Dos Madres Press), In a Public Place (Dos Mad.res Press), If You Should See
Me Walking on the Road (Kelsay Books), The Time of Your Life (forthcoming April 2020 from Adelaide
Books), The Porch Poems (forthcoming 2020 from Deerbrook Editions), and coauthor of Peach Girl:
Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books). He lives in the Hudson Valley.
Other poems by J.R. Solonche in Verse Daily:
Books by J.R. Solonche:
Other poems on the web by J.R. Solonche:
About Tomorrow, Today, and Yesterday:
"In Norse mythology, Odin approaches the king of the trolls and asks him to reveal the secret to life. The troll says he'll reveal it only if Odin gives him his left eye. When Odin complies, the troll says, with a twisted grin, 'the secret is to watch with both eyes.' Whether they inquire into the true nature of a cherry tree, reimagine the lives of figures from Greek mythology, or question the nature of poetry itself, the poems in Tomorrow, Today and Yesterday are the work of a poet who is, in the words of his poem, 'awake with both eyes.' Odin looks on with envy, because J.R. Solonche not only sees the secrets of the world's often-overlooked minutia, but also has the gift of translating those mysteries for those who read his crafted words."
"The history of book blurbs is littered with high falutin' praise, wacky and wild metaphors, written to impress not to inform. 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' envy factor. That's a compliment I hand out to very few poets writing today. You want wit? You want humour? You want erudition? You want them all mixed into poems? Try Solonche. You won't be disappointed. Envious perhaps, but not disappointed."
"Where editors change 'salvia' to 'saliva' and the Starbucks Mermaid is the queen of the land, J.R. Solonche writes with a zen-like, wry bemusement and an ease only achieved with the wisdom of age. His one sentence poems are like Matisse's line drawings, crisp and precise. Solonche slyly gives William Carlos Williams a nod in his poem 'Paterson,' as I'm sure Williams would have returned the gesture through 'cherry tree eyes.'"
"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."
January 10, 2016: "The Devil's Villanelle" "I hear you want to write a villanelle...."
"Cinderella"
"I Often Walk to the End of the Road"
Two poems
Four poems
"A Dialogue with My Daughter Through the Window of Her Dollhouse"
Two poems
"I Bought Them"
"The Poem of the Future"
"In a Public Place"
Five poems
"Out of Nowhere"
Stephen Cramer
John Murphy
Donna Reis
Christopher Nelson
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