BOOKS

Night Bridges

self-published

— 2000

ANTHOLOGIES

16th & Mission Review

Seven7h Tangent Press

multiple issues

— 2007-2009

20 Years

16th & Mission

2003 — 2023

(Anniversary Edition)

Seven7h Tangent Press

—2023

Occupy SF:

Poems from The Movement

Jambu Press

— 2012

Out Of Our

multiple issues

—2010-2013

William Everson Tribute

— 2008

ONLINE

-Evergreen Review-

The New San Francisco

Poetry Underground

—2010

DOCUMENTARIES

“Sweet Onion Salad”:

San Francisco Poetry, Music,

And Other Words

by Richard Gutierrez

— 2010

Rock Paper Scissors

(Roshambo)

by Richard Gutierrez

— 2013

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
—

Throughout his illustrious career as top-teir Insomniac,

Jonathan has spent the majority of his waking hours

in Faustian pursuit of illusory answers. 

Particularly humanity's role in, or profound insignificance in,

the universal structure/construct of Time & Space...

despite how species-centric, self-referential, and

undeniably convoluted that may be.

He was born in Bogota Colombia,

spent his childhood & adolescent years in New Jersey,

lived in New Orleans for 5 Years, then New York City for 5 More.  

He was a member of the San Francisco/Bay Area writing & arts community

for a little over 10 years,

then left to spend some time in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado.  

Rumor has it...

he was attempting to find "normalcy", whatever that is. 

Sadly, yet unsurprisingly it didn't take!  

He now wanders the globe in his irreversible "human suit"

pretending to fit in.

MORE TEDIOUS & INDULGENT BIO

↓ BELOW ↓

For as long as I can remember I’ve always been on a search for the greater idea/concept of "HOME".  Some kind of feeling of belonging/arrival.  I’ve always felt awkward, and out of step with humanity.  Like a foreigner to Life itself.  Out of place in this country, the many towns I’ve lived, with friends & family, in my own skin, my body, my gender; my very consciousness, itself, feels congested with contrastive perspectives, the multitudes all arguing with endless conviction.  I’ve become, throughout the years, more of a spectator, an impartial observer, so to speak; a witness & interpreter to Life, rather than a participant 'of'.

Consider me, if you will: An Apolitical & Socially Phobic Revolutionist.  An Anarchist Of The Heart & Mind.  Cartographer Of The Soul.  A Hopeless & Hapless Romantic.  A Self-Possessed Writer.  Out Of Work Actor.  Part-Time Therapist.  Full-Time Blowhard.  That Guy Who Built That Place, Once.  Hack Philosopher? Failed Newlywed(to the second power).  De Facto Hermit.  Some Schmo From New Jersey.  Or whatever taxonomical device others wish to employ towards my character. Meh!!!  There is a much larger story than categories & titles.... I'm Just Here Gathering.

LOVE is what brought me to poetry, and it is in LOVE I continue to find my greatest cause to write.  However, I am a science obsessed individual, viewing LIFE more as a puzzle, whose completion, I feel, is not only worthy of pursuit, but quite possibly, through enough collective dedication & constant reinvention of perspective, the 'unlocking of' may just occur. 

Many Self-Appointed Critics (not unlike myself *wink-wink*) may call me out, claiming "bullshit" to the high heavens, but I refuse to accept The Human Condition as a 'shrugged shoulder', as just some random experience inextricably linked to time and the corporeal realm of pleasure & pain.  I suppose I’m far too willing to sacrifice my participation in order to gain a greater communion with truth, but this unrelenting dilemma of Artist/Scientist, who must kill the subject he dissects, has bitten down on my heart and has refused to let go.

I cannot deny… this process certainly has its fair share of: drawbacks, spiritual rabbit holes, dangerous mental fissures, and a myriad of emotional deaths & rebirths--but I proceed with smile despite, and to spite, the tears.
 


I take Biology, Biochemistry, Evolutionary Biology, Cosmology, Geology, Physical & Cultural Anthropology, Archeology, Ethno-Botany, Zoology, Crypto-Zoology, Astrophysics, Archaeoastronomy, Paleontology, Psychology, Parapsychology, Mathematics & Theoretical Physics and blend them with Comparative Religious Theory, World Mythology & Folklore, Linguistics, Personal Metaphysical Experiences (Psychonautics), & Global Philosophical & Political Analysis… and try to make some asinine sense of it all.

By the way…. Did I Mention LOVE?
??

Writing is the only way I know best to converse with myself and others.  I was shy most of my life, barely speaking among my peers until my later years. Hiding in corners & shadows to avoid the questioning thoughts of others. Still am to a degree, probably more paranoid than ever, but working on it.

I choose writing, I suppose… because it chose me.  The chicken & the egg thing.

The role of 'The Poet' is a tenuous one; a slight of hand trick.  Out of a lifetime of hard work & inspired craft, you might get remembered for a maximum of two lines, arbitrarily regurgitated by some recently inaugurated Politician at a lucite podium.

That being said... the Expressive Being: the Musician, the Writer, the Painter, the Sculptor, the Interpreter, the 'Artiste'--is needed, must be listened to, holds rank high above kings & queens, because Metaphor IS our Best Teacher.

“Every fact of science was once damned.

Every invention was considered impossible.

Every discovery

was a nervous shock to some orthodoxy.

Every artistic innovation

was denounced as fraud and folly.

The entire web of culture & progress,

everything on earth that is man-made

and not given to us by nature,

is the concrete manifestation

of someone’s refusal to bow to Authority.

We would own no more, know no more,

and be no more

than the first apelike hominids

if it were not for the rebellious, the recalcitrant,

and the intransigent.

As Oscar Wilde truly said,

‘Disobedience was man’s Original Virtue.”

― Robert Anton Wilson  

OTHER’S THOUGHTS

“It’s mostly lies.

Leavened with rumor

and conjecture.”

~Urag gro-Shub

“Facts do not cease to exist

because they are ignored”

~ Aldous Huxley

“All great truths

begin as blasphemies”

~ George Bernard Shaw

“Do not praise your own faith

exclusively

so that you disbelieve

all the rest.

If you do this

you will miss much good.

Nay, you will miss

the whole truth of the matter.”

~ Ibn Arabi

“Are not the enemies

made by truth,

better than the friends

obtained by flattery”

~ Akhenaten

“I prefer to be

true to myself,

even at the hazard of

incurring the ridicule

of others,

rather than be false,

and incur

my own abhorrence.”

~ Frederick Douglas

“Fact is not truth,

but a poet who willfully

defies fact

cannot achieve truth.”

~ Robert Graves

“The opposite

of a correct statement

is a false statement.

But the opposite

of a profound truth

may well be

another profound truth.”

~ Niels Bohr

“Some truths

are unspeakable,

as they will alter the path

of that truth

through having been given

voice.

The burden then becomes

the strength & selflessness

that is required

to maintain silence.”

~ J.S.

“Those who are able to see

beyond the shadows and lies

of their culture

will never be understood.

Let alone,

believed by the masses.”

~ Plato

“I think now, looking back,

we did not fight the enemy;

we fought ourselves.

And the enemy was us.”

~ Platoon (Oliver Stone)

“I imagine

one of the reasons

people cling to their hate

so stubbornly

is because they sense,

once hate is gone,

they will be forced

to deal with the pain.”

~ James Baldwin

“I don’t make jokes,

I just watch the government

and report the facts.”

~ Will Rogers

“Every Writer

is a frustrated actor

who recites his lines

in the auditorium of his skull.”

~ Rod Serling

“Think lightly of yourself

and deeply of the world.”

~ Miyamoto Musashi

“To study and not think

is a waste.

To think and not study

is dangerous.”

~ Confucius

“Discoveries are being made

which show we know

less than we thought.

A discovery doesn’t necessarily

increase our knowledge.

It increases an acute awareness

of our own ignorance.”

~ Pierre-Simon de Laplace

In all of nature,

if you were to look for

the thumbprint of God,

Language is the best candidate”

~ Terence McKenna

“We were never meant to

replace the riddle

with solving the riddle.”

~ Richard Grossinger

“They should have sent a Poet.”

~ Contact (Carl Sagan)