Böcker av James Thomas Fletcher

The meaning of what is family differs for each of us. Most of us know both love and rejection. The experiences of and interactions between family members may vary dramatically both between individuals and over time. My poems reflect my memories, my experiences, and the stories repeated when I asked questions about my forebears and kin. No one within is up on a pedestal; no one is above reproach. Good folks do bad things, and bad folks may still love. People justify acts that seem baffling to others. This collection began as simply poems related to the theme of family gathered from my previous books. Then, I began adding photos of the people within the poems and it developed, to some extent, into a family scrapbook. A nod to my interest in family lore and genealogy, and making this my most intimate book. Nevertheless, with most of the people within dead, these are, as they must be, my stories, my poems. In Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein's character Jubal asks Anne the color of a house he points toward. "It's white on this side, boss," she replies. Like that house, every story has many sides yet we only see the side which is presented to us. This is family as I recall it.

"Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold," said Zelda Fitzgerald. Here are poems from across infinity offering one measurement. Poems as letters written across the universe in an intergalactic game of lover's hopscotch. Journey from our moon and beyond the solar system to another star, a search within and out for love and meaning within the boundlessness of space. Does your hue, your skin color turn a soft golden as the travel agents whisper, does an aura visibate silvery around you and tinkle when the spheres begin their chime?

"Love is the molecule that binds [poetry] / The DNA, the nucleus of the poetic atom," to quote one of James Thomas Fletcher's poems from "Mercury & Moonlight". Within this volume are poems about love, some with a touch of sex or lust, some of place or friendship. Gathered into this bouquet from Fletcher's previous books with additional new poems.

From the author of Poems from Terra and Cairn. More poetry plus short stories and plays. Readers approve: - Your sense of poetry completely changed MY sense of poetry.- Poetry is not something I am attracted to, but one recognizes immediately that [Fletcher's] poetry, or sense of writing, is beyond the normal. - All the qualities of genius. Explore these short samples for a glimpse into In a Burst of Recycled Electrons: PSST! SCRIPTI left the typo in the last message for your pleasure, the connotations for your rumination. I simply sat down with fragments of your notes and the missive flowed.Perhaps you and I have no typos. Thxy'rx nxvxr likx this. Ours always make sense. Yours, the quixotic, pixilated, former mixologist, Jxm LOVEYou soar far into the blueSailing in bright light, over the heads of man.Suddenly someone tosses a faded rosebudInto the spear of the wind, a missile that should never reach you And down to the ground you drop. ZERO DEGREES HAIKUit's the time when airbreaks like glass and stars crack outof the sky: winter DARKNESS DESCENDSThe lights are out in Skylab tonight. The lights, the computers, all of them.The monitors, the servers, the switches, The hubs, are all dormant and dead. The fans are off. The projectors powerless. Every plug pulled. Even the coffee pot. The refrigerators mute, Their doors hang open, lifeless. Control panels and their former twinkling lights Invisible now in the black night. Heating units cold as a tomb. Practice for the future I guess.

James Thomas Fletcher enlisted in the United States Army on Saint Patrick's Day, 1969. He was an M-60 machine gunner in Vietnam.Revised and greatly expanded from the first edition.Fletcher's books of poetry all contain poems that touch on war to some degree, from the Trojan War through the World Wars to Vietnam and beyond. Those poems hint at psychic wounds, at displaced lives, at Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and at the helplessness of survivors. Most of these poems deal more directly with the author's military service in Vietnam.

The poet takes us past midnight fireballs of Mt. Etna, ponders the god of fish with D.H. Lawrence, redefines stars, and even turns off gravity. Science and wonder begin the book, followed by poems about writing poetry, and ending with takes on peace and war. These are poems about possibilities. Fletcher uses free verse to explore connections of love, humanity, history, current events, nature and more. Writing, concisely and beautifully, about things most of the world never notices. Fletcher's poetry dances on the page. Trip the light fantastic with these words.

The complete collection of James Thomas Fletcher's first five books: Poems from Terra, Cairn, In a Burst of Recycled Electrons, Émigré Poems from Another Land, Mercury & Moonlight.

From the author of Poems from Terra, landmarks, monuments, and tombstones along the road of life. Meditations on nature, love, longing, war, and being. PRAISE FOR JAMES THOMAS FLETCHER: A penetrating and provocative smorgasbord. His poems sing and inform in thoughtful, non-conforming, wonderful ways. Life's harmonies coupled with a realistic sprinkling of irony and brilliant dissonance. An existential celebration of life. From intimacies of love to an explanation of the universe, by way of a walk on the noir side ... Fletcher spotlights the quirks of human longing and the enigmas of memory. I have always favored the slow sipping of a refreshing libation mixed with a perfect blend of romance and magic ... adorned with the lemon-lime twist of macabre fantasy. The breadth of topics is impressive. [Fletcher's] depth of thought, humor, love for words, and poetic skill made the book a joy and a challenge to read. Humor, passion, reverence, irreverence; a connection to people, a reflection on life and self, an exploration of ideas. The tantalizing hints and allusions made me want to have the poet in the same room so that I could plumb for more. Highly personal, experiential.... free flowing exuberance of the visual. The intensity of feeling is superior.... Their complexity is almost painful.... I was moved, confused, astounded, curious, excited. A 'Fletcher' adds feathers to arrows to make them fly true. James Thomas Fletcher's poems ... fly straight to a reader's heart. Fun, intelligent, trenchant. Explore these shorter samples for a glimpse into Cairn. BLUE LAKE thunderstorms rage outside the window and a young heron sits in the middle of my lake like a blue asparagus on the back of a sun drenched iguana OBSIDIAN Obsidian. The word lies immovable on the page. A boulder among pebbles of words. Poets unearth it as an ancient coin found beneath the sand or sprinkle it like a rare dark jewel. Its thud-heavy weight attracts the eye like light to a black hole. TUCKPOINTING When no one's looking the ivy vine slips its feet into the mortar between the line of scruffled bricks, tucks itself into the cracks and waits creviced for winter.

James Thomas Fletcher lives in the Republic of Panamá. This book reflects his life in that Central American country, and also ponders love, death, and sex, in poems both poignant and whimsical. Explore these short samples for a glimpse into Émigré. ALL HALLOWS' EVE Haunted and orbedthe moon scoffs at passersbypainted with bloodto purchase candy SUDDENLY You weren't supposed to dieNot like this, without a wordWith no goodbye, without a kiss DUST TO DUST This earth is not of manMan is of the earth - dust to dust -In the Amazon man is earthMud and man are oneRiver, canoe, bank, and manShare the color of a lump of clayOnly differing in tone.

"It may be profligate, but is it not life?" asks Lord Byron. This is poetry with an edge. Combining grit and grandeur while mingling religion and sex, science and spirituality, this intense examination of life reveals the author's struggles with the nature of reality and existence, in language both simple and complex, erudite and approachable. Showing influences of Bukowski, Poe, Cohen, and a tinge of Greek mythology, the author examines wonder, pain, love, and fantasy. "The Lizard and the Tamarind" is a stirring tribute about the death of a fellow poet. "Explanation of the Universe" does a good job of fulfilling its goal. "Square-Breasted Poem" is a quirky romp through anatomy and modernist painting. A strong and diverse volume that addresses themes with which we all grapple. [These poems]are highly personal, experiential. Some of the experience seems to be supremely private. But what struck me most about them was the free association of the images, the kind of free flowing exuberance of the visual. The intensity of feeling is superior.... Their complexity is almost painful.... I was moved, confused, astounded, curious, excited. -- Ann Beals, University of Central Oklahoma As you would imagine in a collection called Terra, these poems will take you places. They compel you across varied planes of the mind: love, dreams, wonder, mourning. But how diverse your journey encompassing the night-beat of a flaneur, the death of a light bulb, a bricklayer's manifesto, a film noir dream, the spirals of a lover's earring--and an explanation of the universe. With wry metaphor yet steady vision, Fletcher spotlights the quirks of human longing and the enigmas of memory. Open it anywhere and you will find a memento to take with you. -- Eva Bednar, Humber College, Canada Explore these samples for a glimpse into Terra. A TOURIST SEEKS ROME Above the cobblestonesin a lost parkamong the ruined statuesa headless couple lock in eternal embrace they are without namestheir passions carved in rocktheir gowns have become leaves and vinesgrowing, dying, blowing away the mouths of their soulsseek lost lips of flesh and marblerivulets of sinterfill crevices like shadowsleaves blow beneath her thighsand under his shoulderstheir dead bone opens on the stone divanas I fall between themour limbs combine tourists record the details how we flickered for an instantlike a match in the rain HALLEY'S COMET When the moon is red as satinand larger than the myth of Halley's cometwhen silhouettes of elms meld into the night at the edge of its circumferenceand our earth becomes blackand empties itself into me I smile in the crimson darkand search my pocketfor a penny to rub, a wishand throw I AM A BRICKLAYER My hands are callousedfrom the barkof brick, the furrows of the palmstained with mortar dyethe powder from everysack of cement clogs my pores I crawl behind the wheelmy boots caked with morning mudand imagine the comfort and quiet of homethe embrace and taste of her fleshpulse of the showerthe sigh of warm socks on wet toesand awaken to the distant tinklingof pans and moist aromaslike the back of a Cairo cafe No longer am I tied to the daytomorrow the achein my back will have dulledtonight I do not commit suicideby hangover, tonightmy mind is freeto glow like the orange haloof the kilnwhere bricks are born

James Thomas Fletcher has lived in a tenth-century Cistercian Monastery in Belgium, the Piedmont of the Carolinas, a protected heron rookery in the northern wetlands, the Acadian bayous of Louisiana, the shortgrass prairie of the Great Plains, and on the side of a volcano in the Republic of Panamá. He also trekked the jungles of Vietnam while in the United States Army. He has steamed down the Amazon River, sailed the Atlantic in a storm, scuba dived in the Pacific, skydived in Oklahoma, and snowshoed in Canada. These poems reflect those experiences and his impressions of the flora, fauna, and weather-the true sense of place-of the many locations that he has called home.

"Long ago I began to collect a funeral pyre of corpses to follow in my wake," writes James Thomas Fletcher.Here are poems "Dressed in garments of farewell, bon voyage for a ticket purchased long ago." Stroll through this private cemetery with shadows beside the path. To "graves where sorrow eats its own body and joy is ever tarnished with guilt." Where unfinished hangs in the air. Read these tombstones of tribute, the poet's "sad things to grace their coffins."Death I never noticed theethough you have always been hereas shadows on my path.