Jason Dodge

Poems written for now

I have asked poets to send to me what they are writing right now. The healing vibrations in the act of writing a poem is for everyone, to know that poems are being written now can give us some of those vibrations.

Love,
Jason

Jason Dodge (b. 1969, Newton, PA) has engaged in a sculptural practice over the course of the last two decades that offers space for presence and reflection. His works exist as primary materials through which to consider the mechanics of perception and aesthetics of everyday substance. Poetry has maintained a specific importance in Dodge’s oeuvre, informing his own studio practice and culminating in numerous collaborative projects, including fivehundredplaces - a small, independent poetry press founded by Dodge in 2012.

"I wanted to know some of the poets whose work has been important to me, and by starting this press I found a way to contact them in order to ask to make something together... Every time I am in awe of the poems, and poets I work with, working with the poems themselves evokes great feelings of care, handling something that was made with great intensity, and exactitude.”

In March of this year, Dodge began reaching out to a wide network of poets, asking them to share a poem written during the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Dodge compiled the poems and distributed them daily via email to a growing list of recipients, in an act of international kinship and creative inspiration. The project reflects the artist’s belief that poetry can help to cultivate and promote collective empathy.

"Right now feels like a time where poems can be used to blow our minds in this wildly misaligned world."