Cold Instant

by Jack Collom

"For only a very few of us, making poems is as natural, as inborn, as breathing. Jack Collom is such a poet. In COLD INSTANT, Collom once again grabs his spirit lollipop, puts on his Captain Rainbow smile, and brings us to 'poetry's perch upon the moment's ledge.' Collom has told us before that ecology is 'everything' and his poetry never fails to partake of the 'radiantly verdant ramifications' of that everything to which he bears witness so keenly. These poems bring it all together--'profusion, extravagance/ invisibility/ holiness'--proving that 'each tiny direction's a universe.' Collom capers with the joy and earnestness of a kid within his wild poetic traceries. His gift to us is to demonstrate that play is the form of wisdom we most urgently need"--Elizabeth Robinson.

86 pages, Paperback

First published May 28, 2010

About the author

Jack Collom was born in Chicago in 1931 and grew up in nearby Western Springs, where he spent much of his boyhood walking in the woods and bird watching. After graduating from the Forestry School at Colorado A&M College, Collom joined the US Air Force and wrote his first poems in Tripoli, Libya. He lived in Germany a Zeitlang, then returned stateside and worked in factories for twenty years. He was an adjunct professor at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado and worked extensively with schoolchildren for thirty-five years. Collom was the author of twenty-four books and chapbooks as well as editor (with commentaries) of three books of writings by children. Collom was twice been awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, in part for his experimental nature writings. He had four grown children and was married to the writer Jennifer Heath.

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful, playful, and various as always. There is no writer like Jack Collom.