About the Book
Written against the backdrop of grey winter mornings, crackling fires, and a news cycle that cuts "like a knife," these poems track a poet's restless mind as it wrestles with depression, digital overreach, love, loss, and the stubborn persistence of hope.
From meditations on artificial intelligence and the erosion of the human imagination, to quiet observations of fireflies lifting like luminous fairies and birds carrying a single seed into a nearby tree, the collection refuses easy consolation. Instead, it offers something more honest — the testimony of a witness: someone awake to the world's cruelty and beauty in the same breath.
Ranging in form from spare, breath-length lyrics to long, rolling free verse and rhyming street-philosophy, this manuscript is held together by a single unifying voice — one that is spiritually restless, politically clear-eyed, and deeply committed to the belief that poetry is not a choice but a calling. "Never did I ask for this need / to share effusive without a filter / an artist must or live oppressed."
A compassionate, unflinching record of living through difficult times with an open heart.
Features & Details
- Primary Category: Poetry
- Additional Categories Literature & Fiction
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Project Option: 5×8 in, 13×20 cm
# of Pages: 84 -
Isbn
- Softcover: 9798240669132
- Publish Date: Mar 27, 2026
- Language English
- Keywords AmericanWriter, Poetry, Kentucky
About the Creator
Once upon a time, John Paul Wright was a community artist in residence with the Kentucky Arts Council and a locomotive engineer for CSX Transportation. He was actively involved in his union and was co-chair of Railroad Workers United. He left the railroad in 2016 to pursue his passion and now works as a deckhand and steam fireman on the historic steamboat Belle of Louisville. He earned his Masters of Fine Arts, MFA from Twice Told Books in Louisville, KY, and his Ph.D. in life from the steel rails of the old L&N railroad, Louisville to Nashville. His work has been published in numerous magazines and trade union journals. Currently, John Paul Wright is a folk musician, poet/writer living in Louisville, Kentucky, with his wife and two cats. railroadmusic333@gmail.com