Poetry - John Paul Caponigro Art

Poetry & Creative Nonfiction

I’ve written most of my life and studied writing in college, earning a BFA with a double major in art and literature. Writing about creativity and photography (technically and conceptually) for over twenty-five years, I grew increasingly hungry to express myself in other ways.

In 2019, during the first Youth Climate Strike, I saw a young poet make a video presentation and have even more emotional impact than 45th vice-president Al Gore as he trained us to make effective presentations through his Climate Reality Leadership Corps. Amanda Gorman’s performance helped me understand that I didn’t need to change my social activism but rather intensify the ways my artworks are socially active.

In 2020 Covid-19 shut down my in-person digital printing workshop and made it possible for me to attend Richard Blanco’s chapbook workshop offered online the same week. I had a thirty-year bucket list item to write a series of love poems to the earth and I saw this as an opportunity to complete it. It became much more than that. I hadn’t planned to write a poem a day for a year – or be trained as a voice actor – but that is what happened. Poetry helped me survive and thrive during the Great Pause.

My creative writing has since appeared in over 50 literary journals on 5 continents, in my public presentations, in publications of my art, and in my exhibits.

I invite viewers to join me in my ekphrastic writing workshops offered at festivals, galleries, and museums.

Poetry has become a daily part of my spiritual practice and an integral part of the ecosystem of my creativity.

For me, the visual and the verbal are inseparable.

Whether visual or verbal, my passion is ecopoetry (making art as a way of understanding earth) and ekphrasis (making art as a way of understanding art),

though it may only be language itself that separates nature nature from human nature

or art from e art h.

View my TEDx and Google talks here.

Find links to individual pieces below.
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Listen to me read.

This key tracks specific projects.

Antarctica
66, 62, 61, 60, 47, 46, 45, 43, 41, 31, 27, 26, 18, 10, 17, 16, 4

Ekphrastic
70, 69, 52, 46, 43, 41, 33, 30, 26, 10, 5, 1

Animal
68, 64, 63, 40, 37, 25, 24, 18, 13, 8, 6

Haiku + Haibun
67, 66, 65, 59, 58, 57, 55, 54, 53, 51, 50, 49, 48, 44, 38, 36, 34, 32, 23, 22, 11, 3
View selections on Instagram.

–

70
Looking At My Landscape
Deep Water
Dec 2024

69
The Wee Sparrow
Looking Long
Dec 2024

68
New Contrast
Caught
Nov 2024

67
Loose Leaf Journal
Roots
Superfund
wrack line plastic
Nov 2024

66
The Pan Haiku Review
Who Discovered Antarctica ?
Nov 2024

65
The Mamba
3 haiku
Oct 2024

64
Contemporary Haibun
Worms
Oct 2024

63
The Woolf
Animal
Oct 2024

62
Daydreaming
Meniscus
Sep 2024

61
Abandon Ship
Willawaw Journal
Sep 2024

60
Bird’s Eye View
Taj Mahal Review – 25:1
Aug 2024

59
holding on
Failed Haiku
Aug 2024

58
3 haiku
piercing the silence
1
2
3
Asahi Haikuist Network
Aug – Oct 2024

57
Everyone In Your Dream Is You
Listen
Connecticut River Review
Connecticut Poetry Award Honorable Mention
June 2024

56
I You They Us We
Listen
Avant Appalachia – 15
June 2024

55
skipping stones
Enchanted Garden Haiku – 8
June 2024

54
waiting for rain
Autumn Moon – 7:2
June, 2024

53
rain
The Cherita
June, 2024

52
Ekphrastic Challenge
(responses to my image)
Rattle
March, 2024

51
leonid shower
Yuki Teikei Haiku Society
May, 2024

50
confusing
tsuri-doro
May, 2024

49
snow billowing
Poetry Pea 2:24
April, 2024

48
midnight’s snow
hunter and prey
Chrysanthemum #32
April, 2024

47
Mayday
Listen
Blue Unicorn
March, 2024

46
Child
Listen

Wife
Listen

Photographing
Listen
Shot Glass Journal
February, 2024

45
You Know You Need To Return
Rust & Moth
February, 2024

44
3 tanshi
The Bamboo Hut
February, 2024

,,43
Licking Icebergs
Neologism
January, 2024

42
What’s Wild In You
Eco Theo
January, 2024

41
Rising
Fishing
It’s Raining Birds
The Maine Standard
January, 2024

40
Robin
Flash Frontier
December, 2023

39
Not It
Listen
The Shallow Tales Review
November, 2023

38
under a waking mind
Heliosparrow
November, 2023

37
Quiet
Listen

Duck
Listen
The Sandy River Review
November, 2023

36
new moon
searching frantically
Akitsu Quarterly
November, 2023

35
memories ripple
Tiny Wren Lit
The Half-Life Of Echoes Anthology
November 2023

34
the last persimmon
Presence
Issue 76
November 2023

33
Rocks
Listen
Strange Music
Listen
Steel Jackdaw #12
October, 2023

32
clock
Pebbles 3
September 2023

31
Polaris Australis
Listen
Kokako
Issue 39
September 2023

30
Looking At My Landscape
Listen
Landscapes Within Landscapes
Sordoni Gallery, Wilkes University
also included
poems – 30, 21, 19, 10
creative nonfiction – 16
May 2023

29
It’s Raining Birds
Still Points Quarterly
May 2023

28
How I Become A Place
Listen

I You They Us We Redux
Listen
Spire
April 2023

27
Superman Has A Fortress Of Solitude In Antarctica
Listen
Indelible
April 2023

26
Invisible Deluge
Listen
Masque & Spectacle
March 2023

25
Morning Music
Listen
Sonic Boom
March 2023

24
Talk
Wild Roof Journal
March 2023

23
Haiku
snow drifts
Cold Moon Journal
January 2023

22
Haiku
hook cast through the air
Scarlet Dragonfly
January 2023

21
The Department Of The Interior
Listen
Tiger Moth Review
January 2023

20
Struck
Pass The Flame
Cathexis Northwest
December 2022

19
What I Do To The Earth I Do To Me
Listen
Little Blue Marble
Anthology 2022
December 2022