In a Moment, Poems by Jim Stone

$15.99

 

These poems pack a wallop; they don’t let the reader look away. And slowly, the characters take on shape and depth; the chapbook has the feel of a small part of the larger village. After a while the reader begins to live there. It’s not as if joy is absent. It’s rather that joy knows better than to hang around too long. There is also a musicality to the diction, an ear attuned to the way words sound as they tumble after each other.

–Sandy Stott 

 

This book of poems takes us on the journey of war and the author is our “lead navigator in the Mission”. These poems bravely pull back the fog of war and reveal the terror and complexity of life after the trauma of war and re-entry into society. We follow a cohort of young men on bombers and we are onboard with them seeing the destruction and experiencing the terror, loss and regret. Full of compassion for the men caught in this enduring trauma and PTSD, we are compelled to see the aftermath of war from hearing voices and responding to ghosts in a storm to the failure of reassimilation and resulting homelessness. We are gently urged to look and to take ownership of the destructive forces unleashed in conflict. The images are heartbreaking and demand pathos for worlds often veiled off and insulated. The poems speak to the unrelenting wounds, psychological and spiritual, taken on by participants in conflict. The ending series of poems elegantly and generously throw us a lifeline to navigate forward with the knowledge that those who have been through such trauma will never be the same.

–Cheryl Passanisi 

 

 

 

 

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In a Moment, Poems

by Jim Stone

$15.99, paper

979-8-88838-290-5

2023

The In a Moment poems deliver a kind of meditation that considers how we have damaged and continue to damage the world we live in by our capacity to create harm through our activities and through the products we manufacture and carelessly dispose of into our environment without considering the caustic effects such products have on that environment. The poems also consider the never-ending wars we find ourselves engaged in, and the many mental and physical effects, not a few of which are permanent, the participants must suffer. Some of those effects are made almost tangible by the poems which also encompass words of hope and solace. Here, in places, we also find occasional humor softly woven in.

James Stone graduated from the University of Colorado-Boulder where he studied Mathematics and the physical sciences. While at college, he also worked on the student literary magazine with his wife, Jo Stone, who was the editor, and together they also worked on Penny Poetry.

After graduating, he went into the Air Force, graduated from pilot training, and flew a fighter. He was pursuing the dream of becoming an astronaut, and failing that, cut short his Air Force service after five years. He and his wife then started a child care center with funds they saved in the Air Force and other funds they gathered from squadron friends and family. The business was later sold, and the proceeds divided among investors.

After several years in financial services James joined The College for Financial Planning where he wrote and taught the course, Retirement Planning and Employee Benefits and taught the Investment Planning course for the University of Phoenix.

Today, James and Jo have been happily married longer than Christmas and have four grown children. Jo still manages her law firm and meets with clients while  James reads, writes, revises and writes some more.

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