Poetry by John Caddy: Bookstore

Gerald R. Vizenor, Ojibway poet and novelist, Cranes Arise: Haiku Scenes.

"John Caddy kicks words into light, a natural, imagistic poetry. He observes the common start of leaves, memorable creases of snow, the sleights of spontaneous motion, the intimate turn of seasons, and creates a communal "home ground." This delightful practice is an eternal presence, a wholehearted trace and tease of juncos, geese, raccoons, owls, milkweed, and waterglow at the pond. "Whenever you write, you surprise yourself saying likeable things that you did not plan," Caddy wrote in a commentary. "We all know more than we know. Writing is one way to let our knowing into the world." This masterful literary artist is known by nature, just ask the treefogs, crows, and cardinals. "

Hannah Hinchman, author and illustrator, Little Things in a Big Country,

"In these poems and their astute commentary, we see how fully present--vulnerable, really--John Caddy allows himself to be, and what an achievement that is in itself. Each poem bears the unmistakable stamp of truly being there, a whole person in an immediate world. The commentary emerges later, in the reflective quiet. I for one am glad that he lets each form stand alone, as distinct kinds of experience."

Theodore Roszak, author of The Voice of the Earth.

"You read John Caddy's marvelous poetic meditations and you feel the secret powers of nature stir in your mind. Joyous, spontaneous, and deeply sensuous, Morning Earth is a work of rare delight. The earth speaks through Caddy's words."

Debra Frasier, author of On The Day When You Were Born

"The ancient Mayans believed our human job on earth is to praise beauty. Eloquence was cultivated and a gifted villager who could see and describe with resonance was considered a valuable conduit to the greater spirit that moves all things. John Caddy is just such a man among our modern tribe. He sees everyday wildness in the long wind, on a spider's silk, and in a redtail, careening. He has that admired Mayan gift of being able to report what he sees with such poetic eloquence that his images become seeds themselves, growing the earth inside of us. He often reminds us: We are the earth made conscious. John Caddy's daily practice is the heart of the revolution that could save us from the worst of ourselves. Imagine what changes we could wrought if we all joined him in seeing the earth clearly, for one instant, each day. In his own words...He "wakes inside me all the wild." Thank you, John Caddy, for these poems. "

Amazon.com, Charles M. Nobles:

If I were assigned the task of placing this book on a bookstore or library shelf I am not sure where it would go. To be sure it would go with poetry but then it would also be at home in the writing, nature, and spirituality sections as well. To bad there are not sections for exquisite or beauty or love, for this gem belongs in all of the above.

…Caddy combines his love for poetry and the ecology into a daily diary of poetic meditations that connect the individual with nature. He then adds a brief commentary on what his poetic observations mean to him…

…Any number of poets have attempted to connect people with nature. None do it better than Caddy. His ability to observe nature and turn such observations into a daily poetic expression that combine the ecological significance of his observations with suggestions for writers and aspects of spirituality, love and beauty is a sheer delight to read. In reading his work I am reminded of the reply of a Middle School student when ask What do poets do with words? The answer: "They say a word and something happens." When John Caddy says a word something truly happens. Highly recommended.

Green Teacher

John Caddy is a true poet, an alert and informed observer of the natural world with a deft mastery of language, a sure sense of the clear and startling word. But holding a high rank among the elite of nature poets is the farthest thing from his mind: like a bodhisattva of the poetic path to enlightenment, he aims to take all of us along. The practice he prescribes is to write a poem a day, each arising from a moment of clear perception and deep intimacy with the place where you live and with your fellow creatures. This set of selections from his ongoing "Earth Journal" provides both example and instruction, the latter embodied in pithy, practical, unpretentious but subtle tips toward developing the poet's eye, ear and voice. The illustrations by R.W. Scholes are equally simple and elegant. This little book invites and inspires us all, from middle school on up, to attune our human being with the larger being of the biosphere, by celebrating life with language.

-Gary Fuhrman

Kliatt Reviews

When initiated as a Bard of the Cornish Gorseth, Caddy was named Kaner an Norvys, Singer of Earth. How appropriate that name is to the author of this collection of short poems that celebrate the natural world. It is Caddy's "daily daybreak habit" to write personal environmental observations "and e-mail the resulting entry to several hundred readers on four continents. Many readers are teachers who share the entries with students each day."

Morning Earth is ideally suited for YA readers who will profit from Caddy's introduction to poetry and the ecological world. His work is often haiku-like in its echoing images and the stillness of its tone. "All day south wind. / The cattails rustle in their blades, / long grasses whisper fluently as rain. / Up close, thin ticks of dry collisions." That same clear, direct and evocative language, however, is also projected in more sophisticated metaphorical observations. "This land is what the glaciers spoke. / That hollow a vowel that took a century to gouge, / that lake uttered by a plunging waterfall, / this sandhill murmured by a stream / beneath a thousand feet of ice."

Each entry is followed by a brief comment relating to the day's poem. "Try to see beyond the surface. You will discover that you already know what you need to know. Most learning in ecology and art is not about 'new' knowledge, but rather about a process of bringing to awareness how much you already intuit and know."

These poems are beautiful in their simplicity and Caddy follows the poems with helpful advice about "Earth Journaling," a practice that might benefit all of us regardless of age.

-James Beschta

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		Morning Earth: Field Notes in Poetry (Milkweed Editions 2003) 125 pages Illustrated by Randall Scholes $13.95 click for reviews and praise click for purchase information
		The Color of Mesabi Bones (Milkweed Editions 1990) 126 pages poems and prose poems Illustrated by Randall Scholes Los Angeles Times Book Prize Minnesota Book Award Available NEW only here! $15.00 click for reviews and praise click for purchase information
		Eating the Sting, including *The Heronry* (Milkweed Editions 1986) 106 pages, poems and prose poems Illustrated by Randal Scholes Available NEW only here! $10.00 click for reviews and praise click for purchase information
		Presences the Blood Learns Again: The Great-Grandson of a Cornish Mine Captain 'Comes home' to Cornwall (Therapen 1997) 50 pages, poems and prose Photos Available only here! $5.00 click for reviews and praise click for purchase information

		Gerald R. Vizenor, Ojibway poet and novelist, Cranes Arise: Haiku Scenes. "John Caddy kicks words into light, a natural, imagistic poetry. He observes the common start of leaves, memorable creases of snow, the sleights of spontaneous motion, the intimate turn of seasons, and creates a communal "home ground." This delightful practice is an eternal presence, a wholehearted trace and tease of juncos, geese, raccoons, owls, milkweed, and waterglow at the pond. "Whenever you write, you surprise yourself saying likeable things that you did not plan," Caddy wrote in a commentary. "We all know more than we know. Writing is one way to let our knowing into the world." This masterful literary artist is known by nature, just ask the treefogs, crows, and cardinals. " Hannah Hinchman, author and illustrator, Little Things in a Big Country, "In these poems and their astute commentary, we see how fully present--vulnerable, really--John Caddy allows himself to be, and what an achievement that is in itself. Each poem bears the unmistakable stamp of truly being there, a whole person in an immediate world. The commentary emerges later, in the reflective quiet. I for one am glad that he lets each form stand alone, as distinct kinds of experience." Theodore Roszak, author of The Voice of the Earth. "You read John Caddy's marvelous poetic meditations and you feel the secret powers of nature stir in your mind. Joyous, spontaneous, and deeply sensuous, Morning Earth is a work of rare delight. The earth speaks through Caddy's words." Debra Frasier, author of On The Day When You Were Born "The ancient Mayans believed our human job on earth is to praise beauty. Eloquence was cultivated and a gifted villager who could see and describe with resonance was considered a valuable conduit to the greater spirit that moves all things. John Caddy is just such a man among our modern tribe. He sees everyday wildness in the long wind, on a spider's silk, and in a redtail, careening. He has that admired Mayan gift of being able to report what he sees with such poetic eloquence that his images become seeds themselves, growing the earth inside of us. He often reminds us: We are the earth made conscious. John Caddy's daily practice is the heart of the revolution that could save us from the worst of ourselves. Imagine what changes we could wrought if we all joined him in seeing the earth clearly, for one instant, each day. In his own words...He "wakes inside me all the wild." Thank you, John Caddy, for these poems. " Amazon.com, Charles M. Nobles: If I were assigned the task of placing this book on a bookstore or library shelf I am not sure where it would go. To be sure it would go with poetry but then it would also be at home in the writing, nature, and spirituality sections as well. To bad there are not sections for exquisite or beauty or love, for this gem belongs in all of the above. …Caddy combines his love for poetry and the ecology into a daily diary of poetic meditations that connect the individual with nature. He then adds a brief commentary on what his poetic observations mean to him… …Any number of poets have attempted to connect people with nature. None do it better than Caddy. His ability to observe nature and turn such observations into a daily poetic expression that combine the ecological significance of his observations with suggestions for writers and aspects of spirituality, love and beauty is a sheer delight to read. In reading his work I am reminded of the reply of a Middle School student when ask What do poets do with words? The answer: "They say a word and something happens." When John Caddy says a word something truly happens. Highly recommended. Green Teacher John Caddy is a true poet, an alert and informed observer of the natural world with a deft mastery of language, a sure sense of the clear and startling word. But holding a high rank among the elite of nature poets is the farthest thing from his mind: like a bodhisattva of the poetic path to enlightenment, he aims to take all of us along. The practice he prescribes is to write a poem a day, each arising from a moment of clear perception and deep intimacy with the place where you live and with your fellow creatures. This set of selections from his ongoing "Earth Journal" provides both example and instruction, the latter embodied in pithy, practical, unpretentious but subtle tips toward developing the poet's eye, ear and voice. The illustrations by R.W. Scholes are equally simple and elegant. This little book invites and inspires us all, from middle school on up, to attune our human being with the larger being of the biosphere, by celebrating life with language. -Gary Fuhrman Kliatt Reviews When initiated as a Bard of the Cornish Gorseth, Caddy was named Kaner an Norvys, Singer of Earth. How appropriate that name is to the author of this collection of short poems that celebrate the natural world. It is Caddy's "daily daybreak habit" to write personal environmental observations "and e-mail the resulting entry to several hundred readers on four continents. Many readers are teachers who share the entries with students each day." Morning Earth is ideally suited for YA readers who will profit from Caddy's introduction to poetry and the ecological world. His work is often haiku-like in its echoing images and the stillness of its tone. "All day south wind. / The cattails rustle in their blades, / long grasses whisper fluently as rain. / Up close, thin ticks of dry collisions." That same clear, direct and evocative language, however, is also projected in more sophisticated metaphorical observations. "This land is what the glaciers spoke. / That hollow a vowel that took a century to gouge, / that lake uttered by a plunging waterfall, / this sandhill murmured by a stream / beneath a thousand feet of ice." Each entry is followed by a brief comment relating to the day's poem. "Try to see beyond the surface. You will discover that you already know what you need to know. Most learning in ecology and art is not about 'new' knowledge, but rather about a process of bringing to awareness how much you already intuit and know." These poems are beautiful in their simplicity and Caddy follows the poems with helpful advice about "Earth Journaling," a practice that might benefit all of us regardless of age. -James Beschta top of page


		Tom Clark, San Francisco Examiner “The Color of Mesabi Bones confronts with clear and unsentimental language the harsh truths that run through families and generations and lives, like ferrous streaks in hard soil. Beyond the looping cycles of pain and mystery and casual cruelty of the ‘human condition’ –and you can believe he’s been there—Caddy comes to peace with the tender self that’s lived through it all.” Pat Monaghan, ALA Booklist “A sterling collection…These poems cut like glass shards…Caddy’s genius is to make us pity the betrayed child in the father as much as we love the child he battered.” Laurel Speer, Small Press Review “Caddy doesn’t flinch from confronting the most difficult questions of life…but he doesn’t preach…and so controlled and graceful are the poet’s executions, so original and inventive his poetic mind, that we are taken up and enthralled by the diverse possibilities of his art.” Gerald Vizenor, Minneapolis Star Tribune "Caddy’s imaginative power is more than magical realism. When it snows in his prose poems the words turn white. And there’s a tension in his metaphors that heals the heart.” Layeh Bock/Pallant, Poetry Flash "The Color of Mesabi Bones is a gift, and a generous one…Caddy shares with you the process of being made and then making yourself, being powerless and taking power…" Jonathan Carroll, novelist "Caddy’s language is jarring and hypnotic, a voice I want to listen to constantly. What it says makes me uncomfortable, but elated at the same time.”
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		Jim Harrison, author of Legends of the Fall “This is an improbably strong book. John Caddy is a piper at the gates of dawn, which is what a poet is supposed to be. “ John Calvin Rezmerski, from the forward The title poem of Eating The Sting is about transforming pain into song, and the title is descriptive of the whole book. Caddy speaks in one poem of children “astonished that humans could be numb.” Before pain can be made into song, it must be felt, and Caddy’s poems strive to bring us out of the anesthesia of civilized life.” George Roberts, author of Elfriede’s Cat “He knows the names of the plants and rocks, the insects and animals our tourist eyes pass over without pausing. His knowledge of the flora and fauna of the landscape of the human spirit is equally illuminating. It is the confluence of these two rivers—the eye and grace of a true naturalist, the heart and wisdom of a true humanist—that is the hallmark of his work.”
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		Donald Rawe in Cornish World Magazine “John Caddy is the Poet Laureate of the overseas Cornish.” Bert Biscoe in Cornish World Magazine “The writing has an urgency. It explores the deep relationships between human experience and the earth…[This book] carries perceptions and ideas that will speak for many throughout the Cornish community. Here is a poet celebrating, exploring his identity, successfully merging the mystical and the industrial…This is mature, rich and probing writing from a broad, lively and innovative mind.”