In The Soup

Ranging gracefully from the high Himalayas to the town dump, John Calderazzo's literal and imaginative journeys guide us through the elusive, liminal landscape that lies between an unyielding reality and our most astonishing dreams. At moments laced with loss, at others buoyed by humor, these radiant poems artfully braid close observation and deep reflection with a genuine humility in the face of the unfathomable. In its profound engagement with the richness and complexity of both human and more-than-human lives, In the Soup offers a beautiful reminder that grief and joy are ever our fellow travelers.

-Michael P. Branch, author of Raising Wild and On the Trail of the Jackalope

Good poetry affirms the life it also questions, undoes our certainties by renewing our sense of mystery, mocks the ease of our pieties with an earthly mirth, and through doubt's strange course revitalizes a faith we didn't know we had lost-this faith living fully requires. John Calderazzo's In the Soup dances between sorrow and ecstatic whimsy, recognizes the suffering of self and others without being sentenced to despair. What a rare thing it is-to find a book of poems that, when all is said and done, is a book that reminds us that joy is an acceptable response to finding yourself in the vast trouble of the world. It is joyful, this being alive-and it's a joy to read poems by a poet honest and unashamed of whatever it is happiness might be: not a form of denial, but a form of acceptance, dark and light, bitter and sweet, all in mutual embrace, where "suffering has been acknowledged. I bite into / my first strawberry, my teeth hurting / from the chill."

-Dan Beachy Quick

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Calderazzo's poems, essays, and literary journalism have appeared in Audubon, Bellevue Literary Review, Brevity, Georgia Review, Orion, Terrain.org and elsewhere. His first poetry collection is The Exact Weight of the Soul (Red Mountain Press, 2020). Among his three nonfiction books is Rising Fire: Volcanoes & Our Inner Lives. His work has appeared in many anthologies, including Best American Nature Writing, Best Travel Adventure Stories, and Copper Canyon Press's Here: Poems for the Planet. English Professor Emeritus at Colorado State University, he's won a Best CSU Teacher Award, a Colorado Council on the Arts Fellowship and founded the literary nonfiction track of the CSU Creative Writing program. Nowadays, he teaches scientists to use storytelling skills to communicate with the public and enjoys trekking among high mountains around the world.