Poetry

Published Chapbooks

A Filament Drawn so Thin--Red Bird Chapbooks

In language that is concise and muscular, Jeff Burt’s chapbook about his father is full of the dignity of work. The boy’s rapt attention to his father, whether he is setting type or walking the woods, is never sentimental. The language is particularly satisfying because it’s so real –whetstone, turpentine, sawdust, “the resin of time.” Burt writes of his father, “He will not be a footnote / at the bottom of anyone’s history” because of how alive he is on the page for the poet and the reader.

Little Popple River and Other Poems--Red Wolf Editions

Some of us are meant to launch into the air
screaming as we head to who knows where.
–“Somewhere, Anywhere”

Jeff Burt’s poems are about journeying; what is gleaned from these journeys—both within and without—are learned, so every poem is perspicacious, is wrought with intertwined meanings, is a bridge between the past and the present. They contain passages of time. Such learning often takes place in the landscape of mountains, creeks and forests. The imagery of tools is ever present—trestle, ramp, tomahawk and so on–and language is also a tool, for bridging inner and outer worlds, between history and the present, animal and human, the dead and the living. His poems reflect empathy for the enslaved, the poor, the hungry, animals, mothers. So richly textured are they that they lead to crossings, epiphanies, transcendence.

2025

Frayed, Confidence, Ode on a Pear--Red Wolf Journal

Holding Onto Sleeves--The Sunlight Press

Notes of Light and Dark, Dos Gatos Press Anthology

The Difference Between Father and Son--Sheila-Na-Gig

Dove--Sheila-Na-Gig

Bainbridge island and Lotus--North of Oxford Russell Streur Anthology-ii

The Teakettle Whistle, Neighbor, Cat's Paw--Backchannels Journal

Sandy--The Big Windows Review

Compass Point--Trouvaille Review

After Purple Hills Ghost Ranch (1934) Georgia O’Keefe--Williwaw Journal

Coyote Truths--Cacti Fur