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No Regrets: Poems
No Regrets is the final stop in J.A. Carter-Winward's poetic trilogy that will break your heart, make you laugh, oh, and take you inside a brothel. You won't regret the ride.
- GenresPoetry
377 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 28, 2016
2 people are currently reading
10 people want to read
About the author
J.A. Carter-Winward
19 books118 followersJ.A. Carter-Winward is an award-winning writer, poet, and visual artist living in the mountains of northern Utah and the author of five poetry books, six novels, two short-story collections, and a stage play.
Her most recent publications include Work in Progress: Dialogues & Poems, and If it Stings...that means it's working - a poetry story, available Limited Edition print hardback and Kindle.
Her latest novel, Wade, won Best Literary Fiction novel of 2021 in that category by IndieReader's Discovery Awards.
She's also co-founded a non-profit organization to help raise awareness for the often-overlooked dangers of over 800+ FDA-approved medications on the market today.
blackboxwarn.org
J.A.'s work can be found in various print and online journals, anthologies, and publications.
Check her official Author Page for upcoming releases coming in 2022.
www.jacarterwinward.com
https://www.facebook.com/jacarterwinw...
Her most recent publications include Work in Progress: Dialogues & Poems, and If it Stings...that means it's working - a poetry story, available Limited Edition print hardback and Kindle.
Her latest novel, Wade, won Best Literary Fiction novel of 2021 in that category by IndieReader's Discovery Awards.
She's also co-founded a non-profit organization to help raise awareness for the often-overlooked dangers of over 800+ FDA-approved medications on the market today.
blackboxwarn.org
J.A.'s work can be found in various print and online journals, anthologies, and publications.
Check her official Author Page for upcoming releases coming in 2022.
www.jacarterwinward.com
https://www.facebook.com/jacarterwinw...
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 10, 2017
this review
has turned into
a much longer piece than i intended,
but who fucking cares,
right?
i write,
because i have to,
just like j.a,
who’s just saved
me
from getting too angry
and bored with modern poetry.
So, I want to start this review by saying a little about poetry’s form and style before I move on to content.
I’ve only been using the internet for about three years (for anything other than emails and the odd purchase), so it’s only been in the last few years that I’ve started reading independent contemporary poets through Goodreads and webzines, and I have found many great poets along the way. In fact, I probably very much enjoy eighty percent of the poetry I read – there are some very talented writers out there - so I hope I’m not misunderstood when I simultaneously state that I’ve become quickly bored with the unoriginality of much of it; and when I talk of unoriginality, I’m chiefly talking about the form and style of the poetry, not the actual content.
what i mean is
i don’t get
why every fucking poet i read
seems
to write like this,
with lowercase
and simple language.
it seems
to me
that every
modern poet
tries
to write
like bukowski
and since such things
as tumblr poetry
it seems
everyone wants to write
this way,
and I don’t know why.
There are many poets who write in this type of modern style – including some of my absolute favourites like Andy Carrington and Raegan Butcher, who I can’t recommend enough, but simultaneously, I’ve begun to generally get really bored of just reading the same style again and again and again.
Where are the poets pushing the boundaries of the written word? Did poetry die with Ginsberg?
Would The Beatles be the greatest band in the world if they’d stuck to just playing rock ‘n’ roll covers?
Whatever the art form may be, for me, if it’s to be truly great, it needs to have a dose of originality to it.
So, although J. A. Carter-Winward has been top of my list for greatest contemporary poets I’ve read for some time now (having read her previous two books in this trilogy, and other poems of hers as well), I put off reading ‘no regrets’ for a little while, because I had become somewhat disillusioned with reading this post-Bukowski style.
Then I finally picked up ‘no regrets’ to read, and I can’t have been more than ten pages in before I paused and thought, ‘Fuck man! This poetry is soooo damn good! It’s head and shoulders above all the rest!’ And it made me realise that form has nothing to do with it, it’s just about how well one uses their chosen form.
I’ve read a few poems by J. A. Carter-Winward that don’t conform to this modern style, where she has paid more attention to the sounds of words and even employed rhyme at times, so I know she can write stuff in various styles, but for the poems contained in these poetry books of hers, she has plumped for the exact right style to get her intentions across. When she is speaking so openly, so honestly, and is making valid and original observations, there’s no point in dressing the words up. She’s purposely stripped bare the language and descriptive prose, just like she’s stripped bare herself, where she serves up every intimate detail about her life and her opinions. The style and the content go hand in hand, and it’s honestly the most engaging contemporary poetry I’ve read.
Whether you’re a poet or a novelist or whatever, there should never be any subject you can’t write about. The only criteria should be: can you write about the chosen subject well?
So, I find plenty of poets writing about, say, the boringness of their daily lives, or being glued to a barstool, or the instant gratification of sex – whatever – but it doesn’t mean they’re always writing about it well. After all, anyone can write, say (off the top of my head):
“my dick got hard
and I came too soon
again”
- and call it poetry. And don’t get me wrong, anything can be poetry, just like anything can be art, so I don’t mean to diminish its artistic merit. All I mean is, it’s not necessarily any good.
Whereas Carter-Winward’s poetry is the exact opposite. She has a punchline to her poems, she has a philosophical point to make, she has an original thought… And it’s this that (partially) makes her poetry so damn good. Poems like:
“it seems there is a deluge
of queer poetry out there
but not a whole lot of poetry
from bisexuals.
probably because we’re
too busy
having sex
with everybody.”
And:
“when a man says
i could sleep with her,
it’s a very different ballgame from
i want to sleep with her.
the first is like a rugby match:
he could give it a try.
the second, like a soccer match:
he’s made it a goal.”
Carter-Winward has lived a life that’s worth writing about. Sex is always the main running theme, but the more I read her work, the more I understand that she’s not really writing about sex at all – and it is that (for one thing) which makes her poetry stand head and shoulders above others (who are just writing about sexual experiences). Carter-Winward is writing about the human condition. She’s contrasting her life to others. She writes about growing up as a Mormon and turning her back on religion, she writes about family, and loss and injustice and stupidity. She’s knowingly allowing the reader to be a voyeur into every facet of her world: hence the titles of this trilogy of books: ‘no apologies’, ‘no secrets’ and ‘no regrets’.
As she says in her poem ‘definition’:
“i can’t define
what I do.
this isn’t poetry,
this isn’t a memoir,
this isn’t fiction,
this isn’t biography.
it is all four combined,
and it is none.
it is my art.”
But most of all, like all great poets, Carter-Winward is writing because she has to write, and by doing so, it’s much more about her journey of self-reflection to try and make sense of who she is, more than anything else.
so, just as
i was
beginning
to get a little bored
of poetry like this
j.a.
carter-winward saved
me and showed me the way.
she’s the best contemporary poet I know of,
end of.
has turned into
a much longer piece than i intended,
but who fucking cares,
right?
i write,
because i have to,
just like j.a,
who’s just saved
me
from getting too angry
and bored with modern poetry.
So, I want to start this review by saying a little about poetry’s form and style before I move on to content.
I’ve only been using the internet for about three years (for anything other than emails and the odd purchase), so it’s only been in the last few years that I’ve started reading independent contemporary poets through Goodreads and webzines, and I have found many great poets along the way. In fact, I probably very much enjoy eighty percent of the poetry I read – there are some very talented writers out there - so I hope I’m not misunderstood when I simultaneously state that I’ve become quickly bored with the unoriginality of much of it; and when I talk of unoriginality, I’m chiefly talking about the form and style of the poetry, not the actual content.
what i mean is
i don’t get
why every fucking poet i read
seems
to write like this,
with lowercase
and simple language.
it seems
to me
that every
modern poet
tries
to write
like bukowski
and since such things
as tumblr poetry
it seems
everyone wants to write
this way,
and I don’t know why.
There are many poets who write in this type of modern style – including some of my absolute favourites like Andy Carrington and Raegan Butcher, who I can’t recommend enough, but simultaneously, I’ve begun to generally get really bored of just reading the same style again and again and again.
Where are the poets pushing the boundaries of the written word? Did poetry die with Ginsberg?
Would The Beatles be the greatest band in the world if they’d stuck to just playing rock ‘n’ roll covers?
Whatever the art form may be, for me, if it’s to be truly great, it needs to have a dose of originality to it.
So, although J. A. Carter-Winward has been top of my list for greatest contemporary poets I’ve read for some time now (having read her previous two books in this trilogy, and other poems of hers as well), I put off reading ‘no regrets’ for a little while, because I had become somewhat disillusioned with reading this post-Bukowski style.
Then I finally picked up ‘no regrets’ to read, and I can’t have been more than ten pages in before I paused and thought, ‘Fuck man! This poetry is soooo damn good! It’s head and shoulders above all the rest!’ And it made me realise that form has nothing to do with it, it’s just about how well one uses their chosen form.
I’ve read a few poems by J. A. Carter-Winward that don’t conform to this modern style, where she has paid more attention to the sounds of words and even employed rhyme at times, so I know she can write stuff in various styles, but for the poems contained in these poetry books of hers, she has plumped for the exact right style to get her intentions across. When she is speaking so openly, so honestly, and is making valid and original observations, there’s no point in dressing the words up. She’s purposely stripped bare the language and descriptive prose, just like she’s stripped bare herself, where she serves up every intimate detail about her life and her opinions. The style and the content go hand in hand, and it’s honestly the most engaging contemporary poetry I’ve read.
Whether you’re a poet or a novelist or whatever, there should never be any subject you can’t write about. The only criteria should be: can you write about the chosen subject well?
So, I find plenty of poets writing about, say, the boringness of their daily lives, or being glued to a barstool, or the instant gratification of sex – whatever – but it doesn’t mean they’re always writing about it well. After all, anyone can write, say (off the top of my head):
“my dick got hard
and I came too soon
again”
- and call it poetry. And don’t get me wrong, anything can be poetry, just like anything can be art, so I don’t mean to diminish its artistic merit. All I mean is, it’s not necessarily any good.
Whereas Carter-Winward’s poetry is the exact opposite. She has a punchline to her poems, she has a philosophical point to make, she has an original thought… And it’s this that (partially) makes her poetry so damn good. Poems like:
“it seems there is a deluge
of queer poetry out there
but not a whole lot of poetry
from bisexuals.
probably because we’re
too busy
having sex
with everybody.”
And:
“when a man says
i could sleep with her,
it’s a very different ballgame from
i want to sleep with her.
the first is like a rugby match:
he could give it a try.
the second, like a soccer match:
he’s made it a goal.”
Carter-Winward has lived a life that’s worth writing about. Sex is always the main running theme, but the more I read her work, the more I understand that she’s not really writing about sex at all – and it is that (for one thing) which makes her poetry stand head and shoulders above others (who are just writing about sexual experiences). Carter-Winward is writing about the human condition. She’s contrasting her life to others. She writes about growing up as a Mormon and turning her back on religion, she writes about family, and loss and injustice and stupidity. She’s knowingly allowing the reader to be a voyeur into every facet of her world: hence the titles of this trilogy of books: ‘no apologies’, ‘no secrets’ and ‘no regrets’.
As she says in her poem ‘definition’:
“i can’t define
what I do.
this isn’t poetry,
this isn’t a memoir,
this isn’t fiction,
this isn’t biography.
it is all four combined,
and it is none.
it is my art.”
But most of all, like all great poets, Carter-Winward is writing because she has to write, and by doing so, it’s much more about her journey of self-reflection to try and make sense of who she is, more than anything else.
so, just as
i was
beginning
to get a little bored
of poetry like this
j.a.
carter-winward saved
me and showed me the way.
she’s the best contemporary poet I know of,
end of.
January 3, 2018
Just read this book with my coffee before work and what a way to kick off the day. Wow. These poems are the finest in human condition poetry dynamite. This lady is a league of her own. The two collections I've read so far have made such an impact and been so inspiring. She had my full attention after the opening poem 'memento' ordered me to go grab the kleenex box. Damn. My very favorites were 'the bar', 'aged to perfection', 'seatbelt', 'while the cat's away', 'no regrets', 'reality sets in', 'yours', 'stalking the stalked', 'accept', 'blue'...my absolute fav gem, 'on being'.
April 23, 2017
The QMC's third book of poetry is very different from the previous two books. In No Apologies she said things how they were, there was a raw anger there, in No Secrets she revealed a lot about herself, again there was that raw anger. In No Regrets things are more reflective, lots of observational poems, very Bukowski-esque at times, some real emotional stuff about her parents and missing them, you can see this must have been tough to write, yet at the same time she must have got some therapy from completing it.
There are some amazing lines here, one of my favourites;
"My words are sirens
hailing the coming
of a shit storm."
One thing that annoys the hell out of me is those who don't reply to an email/text, I have a friend who can take a week to get round to replying. In "Incommunicado" QMC has put down in words perfectly what I feel on the matter.
Once nice touch in this collection was the fourth wall being broken down, quite often a poem ends suddenly so the author can talk to the reader, this brought a smile to my face every time.
Best poem in the book for me was "definition" I've tried explaining QMC's writing to somebody before and never mange to get the right words, now I can just show them this poem as it is perfect.
Another great collection, and good news, at the end it mentions there is another book in progress. HUZZAH!!!
There are some amazing lines here, one of my favourites;
"My words are sirens
hailing the coming
of a shit storm."
One thing that annoys the hell out of me is those who don't reply to an email/text, I have a friend who can take a week to get round to replying. In "Incommunicado" QMC has put down in words perfectly what I feel on the matter.
Once nice touch in this collection was the fourth wall being broken down, quite often a poem ends suddenly so the author can talk to the reader, this brought a smile to my face every time.
Best poem in the book for me was "definition" I've tried explaining QMC's writing to somebody before and never mange to get the right words, now I can just show them this poem as it is perfect.
Another great collection, and good news, at the end it mentions there is another book in progress. HUZZAH!!!
September 30, 2016
Best collection yet from a poet who is sure to become much more well known; writing this good simply can't go long unnoticed.
March 16, 2020
I regret that I haven't written a review of this book yet. I am derelict in my duties as a husband and an occasional character in this and other poetry collections. The things we should not regret are the acts of being human and this collection takes a slice out of humanity and serves it up in all its various delights.
October 28, 2018
Poetry like a punch in the face. This what people mean when they say "authorial voice". Why isn't this author WORLD FAMOUS? Have the Arts in America fallen so low? Are we so self-absorbed, so slothful, that a hurricane-force writer like J.A. Carter-Winward continues to be unknown?
December 4, 2021
this is just sexist and wrong wtf
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews