books by john jones

John Jones is both farmer and poet, but romanticism has no place in his experience or portrayal of life on the land at the end of the twentieth century. And it is the land, the working of it, the living in it, the stark daily reality of it, that is the core of his poetic vision. It gives his poems a remarkable honesty and clarity. Yet they are never bleak. Bleakness implies despair and despair is a luxury few farmers can afford. Like the hill country he farms, John Jones’ poems are uncompromising, unforgiving and dangerous. There is no room for waste, no room for poetic posture. John Jones is not a poet for the faint hearted.

Frank Olding

Welsh Language Editor Poetry Wales '96

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carreg las

(blue stones)

The Collective Press isbn 1-8994-4980-9 This exquisite book, touched with mortality, celebrates the business of being alive, reminds us "we’re a long time dead". John Jones is asking us to live with our shoes off. Not to walk away from the lapis horse but to acknowledge the "exchange between hearts", the importance of the cyclical nature of things, the fact that "there is strength here; all we have to do is find it". - and, sometimes to take a gun with us, just in case.

Tilt

The Collective Press isbn 1-899449-30-2 These poems are assembled to great all round benefit. Unrhymed, rhythmic patterns in which meter is subtly observed when observed at all, in which meter is often suspended altogether leaving the syllables to take there own rhythmic shapes form page space, dense obtuse lining and natural breath, it would be easy, at first glance, to ascribe to them all the compositional techniques developed at Black Mountain, North Carolina. To assume such blanket similarity is misleading. The work is radically varied, each poet finding vastly different resonance's in the landscape of South Powys and Gwent.

Private People

The Collective Press isbn 1-899449-50-7 Here is a diverse collection of poetry talent. From ranters to surrealists, academics to graffiti artists, some more in tune with the disaffected and the waste land than with those that haunt the bookshelf. It is here to make the question, “Do you like poetry?" as relevant as “Do you like music?” The answer would be “yes”, the only other question, "which type?" The writers within this book, give their support to The Collective and to poetry. Within the project ‘Private People’ you have a chance to read their words and see their 'private' faces in them. This is the art, a life source, not as basic as breath but still; essential.

Lucifer's Cradle

These are a craftsman's precisely realized observations, energized via post-modern or open field techniques, married to an innate probing, a modeling of image & action, of cause & effect: of intellect, of fixated soul. These poems accurately delineate light and day, depth and dark night. The worlds John Jones set in motion are truly visionary, uniquely rendered; a constant delight & discovery to read.

"My first publication is still one which I enjoy reading, Some of the poems it contains remain favourites of mine."

A limited edition print of the front cover illustration 'RAM' is available just e-mail me for details

This willingness to put quality before other consideration makes this collection well worth buying.

Romeo & Juliet provokes 20th Century outcry from schoolteacher who believes it too heterosexual.