Excerpts
(Click on links)
Empty Hours
The Toast
Reflections in a Summer Marsh
Arms of Night
San Francisco Gallery
The Mourning
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It was in high school that Mark Jones first displayed an interest in writing, initially as a means to facilitate his burgeoning studies in blues music, when he began writing lyrics for original blues songs. He also became aware of poetry through rock song lyrics by artists such as Peter Brown (for Jack Bruce), Lennon & McCartney, Dylan, Tim Buckley & Larry Beckett, Paul Simon, and Jimi Hendrix.
At the University of Miami, in his freshman writing class, he learned valuable lessons in how to organize his thoughts in written composition. While attending Kent State, he became infatuated by the writing of Bob Dylan, and through Dylan, discovered the French Symbolists, especially Arthur Rimbaud and Stephen Mallarme. He was also introduced to 20th century American poetry in a class taught by Ed McGhee, particularly exploring the work Kenneth Patchen, James Wright, Theodore Roethke, John Berryman, Weldon Kees, Robert Creely, and the Irish poet, Gallway Kinnell. He also had the opportunity to attend workshops given by Creely, Robert Duncan, Kinnell and others.
Around this time, Mr. Jones began writing poetry, as well as music reviews for a local paper. While he continued to hone his craft in poetry, he gradually began writing essays and submitting some to noted publications. His first published work was in Art in America, on the Norwegian artist Jens Johannessen, whom he discovered while staying as a house guest of Paul Hogan, the director of the Munch Museum in Oslo in 1974.
In the subsequent years, his range of writing interests grew to include not only music and art, but politics, philosophy, sociology, health, martial arts, sports, religion, travel, and so on. He has been published, although usually highly in highly edited form, in
Newsweek, the Village Voice, the New York Times, Dirty Linen, Mojo Magazine, the New York Jewish Week, the Cleveland Jewish News, Black Belt, Tai Chi Magazine, Inside Kung Fu, the Gannett Papers, and others.
In the near future, Mr. Jones will be publishing “The Cry of the Lonely, the Song of the Poet: Collected Poetry 1973-2006,” and “The Principles of Body Mechanics,” a book that discusses how the human body moves most efficiently and safely. It will be a guide to help people reduce injuries and even strengthen their immune systems. He has also been researching material for an essay entitled “Jews and the Blues.” Beyond that, he has been working on a long magnum opus that is tentatively titled, “Immortality: A Philosophical Construct for Personal Health, Inner Peace, and Creative Thought Through the Prism of a meditation on Reality.” He also has been contemplating writing a sort of encyclopedia of Bob Dylan’s words – how most of his writings can be applied to all facets of life, much like Shakespeare.
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