Poetry. An eclectic mix of shapes and subjects populate TAKING SHAPE Jan D. Hodge's full- length collection of carmina figurata (sometimes called shaped poems, pattern poetry, or figure poems). Hodge's many masterpieces include depictions of a saxophone, a Madonna and Child, a combination piano/guillotine, and other silhouettes of amazing difficulty and detail. These poems are not only visually stunning, they are also sonically beautiful, and retain a transcendent freedom while conforming to both illustrative and metrical constraints. TAKING SHAPE is a visual feast of inspired poetry.
...

Poetry. In THE BARD AND SCHERAZADE KEEP COMPANY: POEMS, Jan D. Hodge shows impressive formal dexterity, and inventive use of the double dactyl. He turns the difficult form on its head as it transforms into a narrative vehicle, retelling the great classics--the plays of Shakespeare, the One Thousand and One Nights stories from the Islamic Golden Age (as recounted by the legendary Scheherazade to the sultan Shahrayar), and the series of medieval European folktales about the trickster, Reynard the Fox. Hodge's versification of these classic masterpieces manages to liberate this...