These Recent Apocalypses

Arteidolia Press 2023"Endings are at the forefront of Jason Montgomery's book of poetry, These Latest Apocalypses-ecological collapse, war, gentrification, addiction, aging. Sometimes it's just a suggestion of an end, such as "the fraying hem of [his] cut-off jeans" that deftly alludes to the prevailing sense that we are coming to a conclusion. It's there in the nonets, too, which balance precariously on a single last syllable. These LatestApocalypses is a timely book, and urgent, though still hopeful. He has given us more than a eulogy for humanity. "Rage is hope," Jason writes, after all. The reverberations of these incisive poems will stay with you long after you have finished reading." - Catherine Weiss, poetJason R. Montgomery, or JRM, is a Chicano/Indigenous Californian writer, painter, community artist and engagement artist from El Centro, California. In 2016, along with Poet Alexandra Woolner, and illustrator Jen Wagner, JRM founded Attack Bear Press in Easthampton, MA. Jason's work engages the cross-section of Chicano/Indigenous identity, cultural hybridization, post-colonial reconstruction, and political agency. His writing and visual art bridges the aesthetics and feel from the early cubist collage movement and the Russian abstract movement of the 1920s with living and historical Native/Indigenous Californian and Chicano art traditions to explore the Post-colonial narrative through active synthesis and guided (re)construction. JRM's work has appeared in Split Lip Magazine, Storm Cellar, Ilanot Review, Rust and Moth and other publications. Jason is one of 2021 Newell Flather Awards for Leadership in Public Art outstanding nominees and 2021-2023 Easthampton Poets Laureate. Jason is also the co-founder of the police abolition group "A Knee is Not Enough" (AKINE) in Easthampton, MA.