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“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

“The tone is established from the outset: wry, wise, sardonic and playful, drawing the reader irresistibly in. Solonche is revealed as a philosopher in the mold of Wittgenstein: aphoristic, charismatic, acerbic and oddly mystical. If you met this book in a bar, you would definitely want to take it home with you and every day thereafter congratulate yourself on how lucky you’ve been. But that is true of all his books.”

—David Mark Williams

“These poem catch the reader off-guard in playful profundity. While always mindful of the tradition of poetry masquerading as direct statement (the likes 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 insightful poem from the familiar and often overlooked “little things” of the poet’s day-to-day encounter with the world.”

—Phillip Sterling.   

“According to Lord Polonius in Hamlet, “brevity is the soul of wit.” In the poetry of J. R. Solonche, brevity, soul and wit co-existsuperbly. Start with any of his poems. You’ll find, unlike much of what is written these days, the wit is never far from the surface. As for the brevity, imagine an appetizer that’s as filling as a main course.  And, after the meal, after the laughter, the soul will be what lingers.”

—John Grey is author of What Else Is There, Main Street Rag’s Editor’s Poetry Series.

“These short poems are an extraordinary amalgam of wit, close observation, humor, and clear-seeing. Each one singles out and illuminates an ordinary moment— ordinary that is, until the poem explodes into a miniature epiphany. Easy of access and frequently profound, J.R. Solonche’s poems induce in me a state of delighted surprise.”

—Chase Twichell

“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.”

—John Murphy is editor of The Lake Contemporary Webzine.

“As someone who cut his teeth on ‘eastern’ verse, I’m no stranger to shorter poems. I’ve often heard it said that less time on stage means less can go wrong, i.e., shorter poems are somehow easier to write—an idea that I’ve always found ridiculous. With shorter poetry, there’s actually a lot more riding on every word, every syllable. But J.R. Solonche is more than up to the challenge. In this book, Solonche is sharing a lifetime of wit and experience, a whole library of bittersweet moments and insights—and all of it, free of pretension.”

—Michael Meyerhofer

“J.R. Solonche can pack so much humor and linguistic playfulness into such tight bundles, it feels like 1,000 clowns issuing from a VW Bug. He can also fit a lot of darkness and mortality into them, which feels more like 1,000 clowns dressed like Marilyn Mason issuing from a VW Bug. Solonche can be crass the way only the truthful can be, mischievous as a child with his hands in the honey jar, or even aphoristic and proverbial like a modern day Martial. Though he never know which Solonche you’re going to encounter on the next page, he’s a great bunch of guys to get to know.”

—Stephen Cramer is winner of the Louise Bogan Award and the National Poetry Series.

J. R. Solonche recorded a short reading of his poetry. See it on the 3rd Wednesday YouTube Channel.

Buy the book from Shanti Arts Press

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