JOHN CALDERAZZO
John Calderazzo’s poems, essays, and stories have appeared widely, including in Audubon, Brevity, Georgia Review, High Country News, Orion, The Normal School, and Witness. His books include a freelance-writing guide, a children’s science book, and Rising Fire: Volcanoes and Our Inner Lives. He’s won a Colorado Arts Council Fellowship, a Traveler’s Tales Solas award, and a writing residency at the Andrews Forest. His work has appeared in Best American Nature Writing, Best Travel Adventure Stories, A Poetic Inventory of Rocky Mountain National Park, and Here: Poems for the Planet. He taught creative nonfiction writing at Colorado State University, where he won a Best CSU Teacher Award, co-founded a university-wide teaching climate change initiative and taught scientists how to communicate with the public. He lives in Bellvue, Colorado.
The Exact Weight of the Soul
Poems in this book peer fiercely behind the veil of the visible to report the doings of the hidden. In a world where “an old land mine / could be patient as a Buddha,” Calderazzo steps to the boundary of mortality to report on what’s resonant on the life side, and what’s true on the far side. Feral companions to fox, heron, bear, or gator, these poems speak a dialect precise as wood, ice, or bone. They scare me awake.
—Kim Stafford
