JIM DODGE ~

 

Shoeing the Centipede

You don't need a high I.Q.

to write a haiku,

and doggonit

a sonnet

just ain't that tough.

Free verse? Shit,

a brain-damaged woodpecker

can write that stuff,

and sure as snowflakes melt in Hell

you can write a villanelle

by finding two strong lines that rhyme

and sticking with them.

Plus, just between us,

a sestina is

pretty much six words

that can go either way,

while a roundelay

is mainly refrain.

And honestly,

most any turd

off the street

can create an iambic beat

using words as crude

as duh and cat.

Let those rummy critics quibble

in polysyllables

and wave their paper hats:

writing poems isn't hard.

What's hard, what elevates

you to a bona fide bard,

what summons new colors from the sun,

is writing a great one.

_______________

Jim Dodge

Always Something

Limberlost Press

Rick & Rosemary Ardinger

17 Canyon Trail

Boise, Idaho 83716

www. Limberlostpress.com

one of the finest books of poems for 2023

or any year

RE-READING JIM DODGE ~

Learning to Talk




Whenever Jason said "beeber" for "beaver"

or "skirl" for "squirrel"

I secretly loved it.

They're better words:

The busy beeber beebing around;

the grey squirrel's tail

like a skirl of smoke along a maple branch.

I never told him he was saying

their names "wrong,"

though I did pronounce them conventionally.

One time he noticed, and explained,

" 'Beeber' is how I say it."

"Great," I told him, "whatever

moves you."

But within a week

he was pronouncing both "properly."

I did my duty

and I'm sorry.

Farewell Beeber and Skirl.

So much beauty lost to understanding.




____________________

Jim Dodge
Rain on the River
Grove Press, 2002




Jim Dodge in 1984. Photograph: Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images

Jim Dodge lives right, sees right and writes right and he writes right in both poetry and prose, a two pistol gunslinger, with some of the funniest and plainly unique books like FUP, and story poems that you will want to read aloud to anyone you can find. Find the poem about his brother and Dodge giving their dog a bath and what happens. I'm still laughing.

[ BA ]   

JIM DODGE ~

Backroad Chalkies

Summer 2017

photo ~ Two Hands

AND NOW A WORD FROM JIM DODGE ~

H O W ' S     Y O U R     D A Y     G O I N G ?

For many years, well, decades, Jerry Reddan and I have traded publications from our presses —

it's what you do in the small press world if you want to amount to anything.

It's actually what you did before you even had a press.

You shared.

So staying with tradition, as Jerry shares with me a fine letterpress

piece, by his annual favorite Jim Dodge, I can't resist

but to share Jim's poem with you.

We count ourselves lucky.

Tangram
Berkeley | CA.