Kirjahaku

New poems, informed by a place, by a family history, and by a personal history, from this contemporary American poet. This book includes "All Souls", Jim's poem about the Chicago Cubs' win and their fans, past and present.

Drawing from an interdisciplinary career based upon sociology, Jim Hanson employs poetry to provide perspectives upon the humanities and sciences established in curricula of high education. He starts with ancient empires of history, then works through theology, Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, philosophy, language, the sciences, and poets such as T. S. Eliot and Walt Whitman. His poems sparkle with humanistic insight about the issues of these disciplines and their applications to modern society, such as theological and religious speculation, callings of Buddhism and Taoism, contending philosophies of Sartre and Heidegger, and the environmental crisis. His style varies, from long poems of blank verse narrative to short poems of standard rhyme and meter, in order to use poetry's power to enlighten through figurative language and minimal wordage. Heeding Shelley's proclamation that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, he revives the interdisciplinary practices of the ancient poets who speculated about the world through the exclusive use of poetry.

Drawing from an interdisciplinary career based upon sociology, Jim Hanson employs poetry to provide perspectives upon the humanities and sciences established in curricula of high education. He starts with ancient empires of history, then works through theology, Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, philosophy, language, the sciences, and poets such as T. S. Eliot and Walt Whitman. His poems sparkle with humanistic insight about the issues of these disciplines and their applications to modern society, such as theological and religious speculation, callings of Buddhism and Taoism, contending philosophies of Sartre and Heidegger, and the environmental crisis. His style varies, from long poems of blank verse narrative to short poems of standard rhyme and meter, in order to use poetry's power to enlighten through figurative language and minimal wordage. Heeding Shelley's proclamation that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, he revives the interdisciplinary practices of the ancient poets who speculated about the world through the exclusive use of poetry.

Jim Hanson's About Florence is an extraordinary story, about redemption and abandonment, about lives cut short and lives lived to their fullest, and about the things that are told and the things that were not.. Set against the backdrop of Chicago, from the late nineteenth century till now, it tells of a widow's migration from Norway with her three daughters and the family they were able to create. Charming vintage photographs help this narrative poem sketch the lives of these working women who did not count for much in their world, and the lives of their children and grandchildren. It's a journey of discovery that sheds light on how we live today, and how women and immigrants continue to struggle, against all odds, to make a place in America. From the back cover: "To want to tell a story, when the lines of a story aren't even visible. To use what you know about your family to provide something, anything, to flesh it out. To make some lucky discoveries that move the story forward. And then to see your forebears plainly. To grasp who they were, and how they reacted to what happened in their lives. To stand with them, face to face."

Jim Hanson's Endless Journey is at once a travelogue and guidebook of trips down "Cinderella paths" and rivers both roaring and calm, along train tracks and online. In his poems, Hanson brings us with him forward and backward in time to meet up with Buddha and Burroughs, Lao Tzu and T.S. Eliot, Plato and Nietzsche, and then, after peering like Hubble into the far, dark reaches, he leads us home to the people whose "last names/and faces in high school yearbooks" we know well. Endless Journey is a wild ride, and Jim Hanson is a delightful guide-poet.- Josh Russell, author of Yellow Jack and King of Animals: Stories, Director of the Creative Writing Center, Georgia State University Jim Hanson's poetry takes us on a journey from mythology to Jack Kerouac. Oedipus Rex was driven by fate. He made choices but ultimately ended up where the gods preferred him to be. Jim shows how we may be driven by fate, but where we end up depends more on our own makeup---something innate or is it? "Perhaps something beyond" draws us forward as we feel our way through life and "Venture not back to your home/ where they know not who you are or what you mean."- jacob erin-cilberto, author of Pour Me Another Poem and five other poetry books Jim Hanson's first collection is a feast of ideas, undergirded by his broad knowledge of literature, history, science, arts, and religion. Images from varied disciplines travel comfortably together within Hanson's cohesive metaphor of journey. The seven sets of poems tackle the "hoary question of living and time," offering insights both ageless and new. Lost Journey is creative, challenging, and inventively formatted-an intelligent, provocative collection of poems that the reader will want to revisit, dog-ear, and embellish with marginalia.- Kathy Lohrum Cotton, author of Common Ground, and President of Southern Illinois Chapter of ISPS Out of the cacophonous multicultural clamor that we call America, Jim Hanson composes his provocative lyrics in a hero's effort to reach that which is ungraspable. He incorporates notes, chords, and themes, both harmonious and dissonant, from sources as varied as Plato and Lao Tzu, Einstein and Meister Eckhart, Saint John and Zoroaster, Heisenberg and Lucretius. Sometimes taking the role of Virgil, the guide, and other times, Dante, the seeker, Hanson accompanies us down the many strange byways of the human mind as it searches for the ineffable.- William L. Holcomb, physician and founder of Heartland Zen Meditation Community of St. Louis Jim Hanson's poems are about faith and the journey as a spiritual metaphor. While describing that in real life the way is often lost, he opens the way to salvation by the walking poems at the end. Great stuff.- Hugh Muldoon, late poet and activist, Carbondale, Illinois

What is it like, today, to travel slowly across the surface of the planet? As the 17th century Japanese poet Basho did, he took a terrestrial journey: by train from the midwest to San Diego, by ship to Hawai'i and back again. In a chain of haiku, linked with photographs, Jim Hanson discloses visions of the landscapes and seascapes that passed before his eyes.

Jim Hanson's poems speak to the epic issues of how faith is lost in amaterial and mortal world, and how it can be found through responsesthat are spiritual and worldly as well as religious and heavenly. Theyfollow the line of paradise lost and gained by John Milton and divinetranscendence by Dante, but with the breadth of perennial philosophy.They recognize that faith is doubtful, perhaps futile, like Sisyphuspushing his rock with great effort and no outcome, oscillating betweenresolution and dissolution, sin and redemption, samsara and nirvana.Is the end another, exalted beginning as promised by T.S. Eliot or thefutility lamented by Sylvia Plath and John Berryman? Perhaps thefinding and losing of faith is an unending process. The poems start with doubt about self and human nature expressed indemons, violence, and residue. They proceed to knowledge soughtstarting 2,500 years ago in the Axial Age, in a dialogue of similarissues then and now, and in the world around us regarding theAnthropic Principle. They go on to posit multicultural responses todoubt and suffering - theistic, Western, and Eastern - then to moreindividual responses of paths to take and of perennial faith to befound. So we all may have some faith in our selves and in thesocial/cultural realm, bio-physical realm, and ideal gods and heavens- some transcendental faith beyond who we are and what we know. Jim Hanson is a sociologist and retired Senior Researcher at SouthernIllinois University-Carbondale. He has taught sociology and communitydevelopment, also has worked in community and economic development. Heis a lay-ordained Zen Buddhist and lives in the St. Louis area withhis wife, Carol. His poetry collections include Endless Journey: Poemsin Search of Meaning published in 2022 by Spartan Press, Perspectives: Educational Poems on the Humanities and Sciences published in 2023 byResource Publications, and Ruminations: Poems on Living and Dyingpublished in 2023 by Cyberwit Press. Single poems have appeared insome thirty websites and printings. He is a member of the and IllinoisState Poetry Society Southern Chapter and St. Louis Poetry Center. BIOJim Hanson is a sociologist and retired Senior Researcher at SouthernIllinois University-Carbondale. He has taught sociology and communitydevelopment, also has worked in community and economic development. Heis a lay-ordained Zen Buddhist and lives in the St. Louis area withhis wife, Carol. His poetry collections include Endless Journey: Poemsin Search of Meaning published in 2022 by Spartan Press, Perspectives: Educational Poems on the Humanities and Sciences published in 2023 byResource Publications, and Ruminations: Poems on Living and Dyingpublished in 2023 by Cyberwit Press. Single poems have appeared insome thirty websites and printings. He is a member of the and IllinoisState Poetry Society Southern Chapter and St. Louis Poetry Center.