Objects In Motion

• Objects In Motion
• Price: $16.00
• Poetry - PB
• Pages - 108
• ISBN: 978-1-936196-93-7
• LCCN 2018956122
• PREORDER NOW - Ships March 2019

MEET THE AUTHOR

We asked Jonathan Katz two questions. Why did you write Objects in Motion and why do you write poetry?

“I wrote Objects in Motion because poems can connect the arts, sciences and humanities.  These connections are always evolving. Sharing experience through poetry we reflect and adapt.”–Jonathan Katz

“I write lyrics, narratives and dramatic monologues because these kinds of poetry are like the Greek masks symbolizing theater. You try them on to share the experience of being you and of being another.”–Jonathan Katz

ABOUT

Objects in Motion is the first full-length poetry collection by the well-known cultural policy leader and arts administrator, Jonathan Katz.  In this ambitious book, Katz sequences the poems in sections designed to provoke a reader’s exploration of connections to and separations from the natural world; of conduct, politics and ethics; of family and community relationships;  and ultimately, of what artistic experience contributes to the work one has to do to fill life with meaning and value. The language of the poems is richly meditative and enhanced by vivid, sensual imagery. Readers have recommended his “dazzling lines,” “surprising tropes,” and have found his poems both “enjoyable to read” and “webbed with moral questions, challenges to orthodoxy, and dares….”  Objects in Motion is the kind of book readers return to again and again to revisit a favorite poem.

A LOOK INSIDE OBJECTS IN MOTION

American Disco

The most artful moment of the international
seminar was when the Serbian girl shin-kicked
the Turkish girl on the crowded dance floor.
From another angle, it might have looked accidental.
“What was that for?”  I asked through a cloud
of American ignorance. “Five hundred years
of oppression,” my explosive companion responded.
“Wow,” I thought, “if people carried any more
ordnance of history they’d spontaneously combust
with a lot of collateral damage.”
The next tune bouncing up was “Staying Alive.”
My body felt lighter than the night air
and I glided away, my feet little detonators
wired to the power of the absence of history.

PRAISE FOR OBJECTS IN MOTION

“Jonathan Katz’s exquisite collection Objects in Motion revels in the sublime as delivered to us by the physical world — here we have jellyfish, the Red Sea, disco, church bells, bananas! Each an object worthy of contemplation and providing a spark of awareness beyond our mere survival. Katz’s poems are written with a keenly observant eye and a wry humor that leavens even the most challenging aspects of living an examined life. It is a book full of compassion and wit; it is, as a great book should be, very good company.”
-Elizabeth Scanlon, Editor, American Poetry Review

“Jonathan Katz has created another gem of a poetry book. He brings his signature curatorial eye for off-the-beaten track experiences, and unique cameo appearances by seanchais, soothsayers and contrarians in the modern day form of bus drivers, cobblers and found coins. Objects in Motion includes some of my personal favorites such as “The Thing Beyond Naming” (for obvious reasons) and many other poems that I had the privilege to hear in progress at the end of a good meal or in the middle of a music making session. Those settings are appropriate because these poems are crafted not only with words but with music and tastes, and smells and movement, With Jonathan Katz, whenever the poet speaks, the mischief maker lurks close by, which keeps it fun…but the professor, too, is not far away. In just one book we learn about “Ephemeroptera,” “Stichomancy” and “Moxibustion” right alongside real family values, the power of relationships, the haunting impact of “our million indecisions” and even some witchcraft all packaged in complex word puzzles, but with rhythm. The result is some new learnings wrapped in the pure joy of some beautiful phrases such as “the curve of the earth as the top half of a smile” in his poem, “Millennium.” Pour some whiskey, stifle all inhibitions, devour these poems, and you may want to buy several copies.”
-Robert L. Lynch, President and CEO, Americans for the Arts

“Jonathan Katz’s poetry opens us to vistas of kinetic and multidimensional worlds with introspection and meaning often graced with humor. He reveals personal memories ranging from his father’s timeless lesson in “Visitor,” to reflections on disappearances, pleasure, hoarding, disco, and the absence of history. Katz has offered an amazing gift of respite for us to explore the joys of imagination, love, loss, courage and ultimately discovery which will surely resonate with the reader, as it did with me. You are sure to triumph in this journey.”
-Tom Moran, Chief Curator, Grounds For Sculpture