Do You Hear It?

When I pick up a book of poetry, I admit I expect certain things. do you hear it by j.lewis went beyond my expectations and brought out feelings I had no idea I was hiding from. Poignant and gripping, each poem touches on the part of everyday life in a way that brought out all of my emotions. With the first poem, "can we just reincarnate," the book hooked me, and it wouldn't let me go. The perspective of the father in "through my eyes" captivated me with its simple-profound observation. Common things people take for granted are presented in a way that lets me peek into the poet's life journey and share it with him.

-Sherry Terry, author of The Cocky Stranger

Plain spoken, de-capitalized, and frequently unpunctuated, j.lewis's poems summon the muse and name the urgency of their calling, whether old sorrow or fresh joy or a sudden sighting in the wild. The show never closes in this new collection of poems on the progress, sidetracks and rabbit holes of a fully embraced existence. Poet and medicine man, artist and musician, Jim's poems present the essential facts of a lively present and thoughtfully sifted past, offering tales of "menageries / of dancing owls / and singing rats / choirs of crickets / and juggling whales." They are works of an open mind, warm heart, and a photographic imagination.

Robert Knox, author of Gardeners Do It With Their Hands Dirty

Jim's poetry has always been the human experience itself for me. It is pain-dull or sharp or slow or quick; it is love, with its longings, its rewards, its consequences; it is food and nature and a dash of theology. It is a conversation with a man who lives his life with his eyes wide open and is anxious to tell you all about it.

-George Wells, short story author, and poet