Of Two Minds

"Of Two Minds is the second in a trilogy of poetry books dedicated to the thoughts and meanderings of a born-again poet who carries with him not only a desire to hunt and gather and collect everything he can but also a persistent pancreatic tumor that provides a hauntingly realistic filter through which to observe the world and the people and animals that inhabit it. "More than any book I can think of, Jory Posts prose poetry collections incant the brief and brilliant present moment. Illness is the dark side of the dharma of now, and Post takes us along to the oncologist and the operating room while also surging through days with the artists eye, missing no bloom or bowl of oatmeal or vicarious mountain hike. Each poem sends out a blinking light that sets the next one in motion, and the work becomes a remarkable record of the way a mind recovers the pieces of a life as a daily practice, the way it multiplies and holds an accordion of thought. In these compressed narratives befitting of urgency, he floats above canyons, is a burning star, a search light, beckoning us to make a bright spectacle of ourselves, one more time. Of Two Minds is an invitation, an ephemera room, a memory garden, a singular moment where a cabinet of surprise awaits." -Jennifer K. Sweeney "Jorys second book of poems astonishes with the lightness with which it lands on heavy subjects. It takes the smallest observations of the world-the medical rigamarole of chemo treatments, unusual number correspondences, overhead phrases, an invasion of butterflies, French toast with real maple syrup at the Silver Spur, a friends tomatoes, seeing faces in the pot de crème-and turns them to see what light theyll refract. These poems are fearless, whimsical, and deeply spiritual. For instance, Buzz, starts as a meditation on a saws new gizmos, invented to protect life, turns towards one thing the saw might make, and then dismantles it: For my next project, Ill take the coffin Ive been imagining, cut it into small strips. Carve matchsticks. Add sulfur tips. Burn my future into something new. Such imaginative leaps surprise with the happy rightness of their discoveries. These poems face death but celebrate life, with all its quirky, quotidian joys, pulling us in to celebrate what writing can conjure-both in the speaker, and in all of us willing to slow down and listen. Dip in. Travel with Jory. His words hold us. Together." -David Allen Sullivan, Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz county "In Jory Posts Of Two Minds everyday objects and animals set the poets mind in motion, leaping from memories to the measurements of the body to the stories of the stars. This collection of prose poems knows how to savor the repetitions of the daily. Acutely aware of time and its passage, these poems remind us to take a look inside, watch the then, now and later. Post is a collector who searches through flea markets and conversations and gives everything-bright or dull, new or used, present or timeless-a second look." -Traci Brimhall"--