Brian Peter Hodgkinson

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Biography
A Sample Poem
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Biography

Brian Peter Hodgkinson forges poems from the raw material of a lived life. Drawing on a history that includes the U.S. Marine Corps, Kenya, India, and the American Midwest, he treats poetry not as an ornament, but as a tool for unflinching testimony. His work is a direct and world-weary report from the front lines of memory, conflict, and spiritual wrestling. For Hodgkinson, a poem is a medical chart, an autopsy of a single, powerful moment. His declarative, free-verse style is built on the language of lived life: visceral, concrete, and stripped of all pretense. At the heart of this unflinching gaze is a "gritty compassion"—a clear-eyed perspective that examines the scars of history and family, yet still finds cause for a hard-won, defiant praise. His poems are not whispered; they are testaments, meant to be written—and read—out loud.

A Sample Poem

The Medical Chart Soulmates. That was the word you used. Now it's something else. An atom split clean open, everything left radioactive. The heart, a black clot. Our union, we called it a child. I guess it was born dead. You tell me my words are filth. Fair enough. But you're the one who said I held the key to that cabin in the woods. I thought you were an angel. But what came out of you was a black tar. Your wings, I see now, were just razor wire. Your words, a handful of broken glass. The rings, the promises. All of it. Two elements fused. Then the lip started, a nicotine stain you couldn't scrub off. I was your bodyguard. Pulled you back from that cliff. Now I'm just a name with a black spot on it. Then castrated. By your shame. Were we soulmates? The thought was nice, I guess. But you carved me out of your body when it was already a corpse. A useless organ for the medical waste bin. So, no. We were never that. Just a body on a slab, and my brain-dead choices were the cause of death. Brian Peter Hodgkinson September 11, 2009

All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.