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Home > J Tarwood

J Tarwood [1]

Listed as: 
Poet
Public address: 
Zion, IL
Illinois US
Email: 
JAtarwood@gmail.com
Bio: 

As an adult, I’ve worked in Kenya, Turkey, Yemen, Oman, Colombia, and Dubai; I’ve trekked by all sorts of dubious means through most of Africa, Europe, and South America, and I have been working for the last seven years in China.

But my life hasn’t been a travelogue. I’ve lived out globalization from aerograms to emails; that’s given me a vision quite different from many contemporary American poets.

I like what Rimbaud said: “’I’ is an other.”  

Norman Dubie praised my work, saying at times it was "a little like discovering an erect and hooded cobra in a petting zoo."  Philip St. Clair said I had superb ear, an unerring sense of pacing and compression, and striking and surprising images and tropes. He described me as "A long-time world traveler and expatriate, he brings uncommon wisdom and spirituality to his work: like the Jesus in one of his poems, he's ''made damn sure/he was never more/ than just passing through."

My books are The Cats in Zanzibar, Grand Detour, And For The Mouth A Flower, What The Waking See, The Sublime Way, and The World At Hand.  Most are available on Amazon.

 

 

 

Gives readings: 
Yes
Travels for readings: 
Yes
In which languages are you fluent?: 
Spanish
Born in: 
Waukegan
Raised in: 
Waukegan, IL
Illinois
Prizes won: 

1997: Plainsong Poetry Award

2001: Visions Featured Poet

2003: Pushcart Poem nominee

2023: Selected for Best American Poetry 

What I'm reading now: 
Rural Rides by William Cobbett
Selected Poems by Anthony Hecht
The Rural Life by Verlyn Klinkenborg
Shelly: The Pursuit by Richard Holmes
Collected Poems by Ted Hughes
Selected Poems by Ezra Pound
Prefers to work with: 
Any

Source URL:https://www.pw.org/directory/writers/j_tarwood

Links
[1] https://www.pw.org/directory/writers/j_tarwood