1965

poems by J. R. Solonche

Print (softcover): $17.95
 

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Poet J. R. Solonche adds 1965 to his impressive list of over forty published poetry collections.

POETRY / General 

ISBN: 978-1-971191-08-9 (print; softcover; perfect bound)

LCCN: 2026935638

Released March 2026 | Copyright 2026

104 pages

Author Biography

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.

Endorsements

“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 . . . He’s playful and profound—the more he writes, the more he seems to know. Beneath the Solonche simplicity are significant social comments, and his goodwill reinforces the best in us.”
—Grace Cavalieri, Washington Independent Review of Books

“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

“The history of book blurbs is littered with high falutin’ praise, whacky 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” factor. That’s a compliment I hand out to very few poets writing today. You want wit? You want humor? You want erudition? You want them all mixed into poems? Try Solonche. You won’t be disappointed. Envious perhaps, but not disappointed.” 
—John Murphy, editor of The Lake Contemporary Poetry Webzine

“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

News and Reviews

Watch or listen to this wonderful video featuring J.R. Solonche. He reads some of his poems, and his general comments on poetry are so worth hearing. Hosted by Rattle Poetry.