Jonathan Bennett Bonilla knows from poetry.
And from prose.
And from criticism.
From Ricoeur and from Derrida.
And he knows from translation.
Him knows from philologists, and philosophers, and filmmakers, and philanderers. (Maybe not…)
And knows from publishers—venerable; specialty; art house. Letter press.
Need to reach an editor at Tupelo or Copper Canyon? Bennett is your man.
Need to find an early edition of Gwendolyn Brooks? Try him again.
Do you want to get a grant, or a residency—an inner track, or an outer ring—
Do you want any wordy thing, or literary personage—
There’s a good—a very good chance that Jonathan Bennett Bonilla can get it/him/her/they for you.
Do any of you lack for hubris? He lacks more.
Do any of you go down in darkness again and again to the bright page? He goeth more.
Have any of you graces to be shown,
Goods to be given,
Goings-on to be gotten to—
Have you wise friends and meek, and older, and younger, who need your conveyance to an order, to an ordering of words—
By tutelage, by example, by bracing applause and charitable retort?
I tell you in truth, our man hath more of these.
So many of us here are so very in his debt.
He and Pete M. and Bryan P. and I have been upholding and upbraiding each other in writerly concord for years. And are much, much the better for it.
What could be better for we happy three, for all of us here, than to welcome now to our ears – Jonathan Bennett Bonilla.
mws 