Zachary Jean profile picture

Zachary Jean

I am here for Friends and Networking

About Me

I am in love with these 14-line poems, these little songs full of iambic pentameter and rhyme. As a poet, I have been hoarding sonnets for the last two years. I have the eyes of the mystic poet Sappho, the lips of Lord Byron, the laugh of Sylvia Plath (pre-oven days) and the ass the great god Eros. Oh yes, I've been working a night job as a certified nurse aide in a retirement home in my city for about two years too. Listen, life is too short not to have you as a friend. It is as the great Sufi mystic Rumi put it: Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing/ there is a field. I'll meet your there. Yes!

My Interests

14 lines of poetry about tongues &; fingers ... colors &; moods ... absinthe &; ecstasy ... be it in Shakespearian, Spencer or Petrachan form.

I'd like to meet:

I know there are others out there who write their own sonnets. There are sonnets in every language of the world and poets who create whole worlds in what Wordsworth called this scanty plot of ground. Where are you? Write to me, I am curious about you. Let us be amazing friends!

Music:

The theme to Rawhide? No? How about Beethoven's Symphony No.4 in A major Op.90? Yuck? Then how about You Suck by the Yeastie Girls? Who are the Yeastie Girls? OK, we'll just listen to the corporate rock/rap you like. You see, I'll listen to anything ... except at work or on religious holidays, it's spring time after all ... let's try Lavay Smith & her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, Tan Dun, Laura Love, Hang on the Box, Pansy Division and Aimee Mann or anything you listen to I'll like since I go from 80s New Wave to Rossini, Irish folk to Armenian daduk, R&B to the beginnings of Old School, The Monolators' Rejection Set Me Free to Freddie Redd's The Connection -- unless it's Lou Reed's Metal Music -- I can't stand the sound of a circular band saw screaming for 124 minutes.

Movies:

If anyone recalls Russ Meyer's films, they're always good for a laugh and everyone keeps saying that Secretary is hot -- and it is good -- but for reasons of perversity alone, I'd say the scene in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover where they're naked in the van full of decaying ... what? dinner? ... and flies buzz hideously about them ...

Television:

I stopped watching TV when I developed a social life ...

Books:

I went to the Dodge Poetry Festival in New Jersey two years ago and saw Coleman Barks reading Rumi while the Paul Winter Consort played in the background. Later Philip Levine read Federico Garcia Lorca while Dave Douglas and Uri Caine backed him up on trumpet and piano. I thought: "ah ... that is how poetry should flow!" Music! Noise! Love! Chaos! Imagine composing music for the poetry of Qiu jin; Manfred by Lord Byron; The Gypsy Ballads by Federico Garcia Lorca; Lunch Poems by Frank O'Hara; Cow Worship by Gerald Stern! The next book I want to read should explain how to do just that.

Heroes:

Any lovers of rhyme schemes. Anyone who can take "a,b,a,b, ... c,d,c,d, ... e,f,g, ... e,f,g" and make it sing ... like Eli ... and Shelby ... and Mary ... and Baby Ivan ...uh, er ... yeah ...

My Blog

The Last Himeyuri -- Prologue

Here is the first installment of my Himeyuri story. I must stress again (and throughout this project) that this is pure fiction. While the story is based on the last months of World War II and the Ja...
Posted by Zachary Jean on Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:49:00 PST

The Last Himeyuri -- an introduction (of sorts)

There is a fantastic story here, but I am not telling it; the story I am going to tell is a work of fiction. My story comes third-hand, from my poor attempts at translating Japanese, from snippets I'...
Posted by Zachary Jean on Mon, 21 Apr 2008 06:40:00 PST

theater of static -- part i

I am falling in love with static; that terrible hiss and pop on the radio one hears in-between stations. If you examine the lives so many people who have, through sheer force of ego and alcohol alone...
Posted by Zachary Jean on Thu, 24 Jan 2008 09:28:00 PST

nicoles portrait [with freckles]

Nicole surprised me this evening with this astounding image! Amazing. Simply amazing....
Posted by Zachary Jean on Sun, 20 Jan 2008 07:11:00 PST

Garcia Lorcas Riddle of the Guitar  in French, Italian & Portuguese

"dream of the guitar" ZJC (2008)One of the draw backs of the book I have put out is that it is not a bilingual edition. It is wholly in English. I am not as knowledgeable as I should be with copyrig...
Posted by Zachary Jean on Sat, 12 Jan 2008 10:52:00 PST

Garcia Lorcas Romance Sombambule in Chinese

"federico: another age" ZJC (2008)I have been working on a version of Federico Garcia Lorca's famous poem, Romance Sombambule, or, roughly translated, The Sleepwalker Ballad. Several friends have look...
Posted by Zachary Jean on Sat, 12 Jan 2008 10:01:00 PST

shelley’s cards are out!

art by Shelley M. HouseOne of the wonderful things about knowing talented people is promoting them so the world can see just how amazing they are! My friend Shelley (her motto is: Life * Love * Coffee...
Posted by Zachary Jean on Sun, 06 Jan 2008 11:22:00 PST

nessun dorma

"Aretha Franklin" ZJC (2008)Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma!Tu pure, o, Principessa,nella tua fredda stanza,guardi le stelleche tremano d'amoree di speranza.Ma il mio mistero รจ chiuso in me,il nome mio nes...
Posted by Zachary Jean on Sun, 06 Jan 2008 07:32:00 PST

red bamboo [chinese translation]

"red bamboo [new year]" ZJC (2008)It is a new year. Earlier today Dino from Shanghai, China, helped me translate the poem Red Bamboo into Chinese. Thank you, Dino, you are wonderful!...
Posted by Zachary Jean on Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:40:00 PST

third coast dutch poetry

Living, as I do now, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, I have begun to become interested in Dutch poetry. When I tell my friends I have moved to the west side of the state I am usually greeted with with rea...
Posted by Zachary Jean on Fri, 28 Dec 2007 02:49:00 PST