Poetry: A Concept of Right Now by J. Scott Walker

A Concept of Right Now (Unsolicited Press) is a poetry collection that explores the tension between uncertainty and truth. It is a collection that exists where many elements of culture and society converge: the internal and external geographies of shared human experience. Blending narrative and lyrical modes, in a searching yet grounded voice, it is an attempt to reconcile and reveal what it means to be a person of the early 21st century.Paradox is a thing to be avoided. Truly difficult intellectual tasks, such as attempting to understand and reconcile hypocrisy, contradiction, equivocation, moral relativism and the like seems altogether too taxing or pointless to those participating in mainstream culture today. Instant gratification has replaced true engagement. Self-centeredness has replaced self-awareness. Technology has replaced meaningful interaction.

The poems in A Concept of Right Now attempt to confront the paradoxes of our age. In a voice filled with awe and anguish, J. Scott Walker searches through the physical and spiritual worlds for solid ground on which to stake a claim on meaning. In a world where everyone’s attention is being pulled in hundreds of dispirit directions, this collection searches for what binds us, what exists in the space between space, and a way to name the truth found there.

J. Scott Walker teaches English and Creative Writing in Greensboro, North Carolina and writes songs, plays, and poetry. A graduate of Appalachian State University and the University of Alaska, his poems have appeared in Town Creek Poetry, Big River Poetry, Cold Mountain Review, and Cirque. The emphasis on place in his work is the natural product of having lived in ten US states including both Carolinas, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Alaska. He has also traveled extensively outside of the US both in a physical sense and also in his imagination. ◊