Author Archives: jaurquhart

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About jaurquhart

Jack Andrew Urquhart was born in the American South. Following undergraduate work at the University of Florida, Gainesville, he taught in Florida's public schools. He earned a Master of Arts degree in English, Creative Writing, from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he was the winner of the Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Award for Fiction (1991). His work has appeared online at Clapboard House Literary Journal, Crazyhorse Literary Journal, and Standards: The International Journal of Multicultural Studies. He is the author of So They Say, a collection of self-contained, inter-connected stories and the short story, They Say You Can Stop Yourself Breathing. Formerly a writing instructor at the University of Colorado’s Writing Program, Mr. Urquhart was, until 2010, a senior analyst for the Judicial Branch of California. He resides in Washington State.

Haiku for My Son, by @jackaurquhart

For Dillon Tyler Urquhart March 8, 1979—August 2, 2013 ©2014 by Jack A. Urquhart  

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You Don’t Say, free verse by @jackaurquhart

©2014 by Jack Andrew Urquhart People say the damnedest things, people meaning, you, of course— say you can’t stand your mother, whose definition of trauma is a frizzled permanent wave. Say that your children’s lunacy makes of you a mental … Continue reading →

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Surrendering to Cliché, free verse by @jackaurquhart

©2014 by Jack A. Urquhart One after another, they fall— chestnuts from the hospital bed, the utterances of old age: “ ‘Beats me, how time gets away,” she crepitates, this crisp of sun-dried human being, this wisp of ossified womanhood. … Continue reading →

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Queer Science: free verse by @jackaurquhart

©2014 by Jack A. Urquhart Do you know Einstein’s Law of Photoelectric Effect— how electrons can lose their metallic bonds, become sub-atomic emissions, spun solo into space? Well, neither do I.  Not really. Only layman’s knowledge. Just enough to speculate, … Continue reading →

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“March”: a poem by @jackaurquhart

(Some free verse … for my son, Dillon) March You were tardy aborning, a day late and mad — —as a March hare; it took a suction cap to coax you into the world. Pushed to fight or flight, a … Continue reading →

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A Birthday Wish For Dillon, by @jackaurquhart

©2014 by Jack Andrew Urquhart 682 words Dear Dillon, Dear Son, It’s March again—what would have been your thirty-fifth birthday arriving hard and heavy on the heels of Ash Wednesday this year. I say hard and heavy because it feels … Continue reading →

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When God Happens, by @jackaurquhart

© 2014 by Jack A. Urquhart     562 words I have been thinking a lot about God and religion lately or, perhaps more aptly, about the place that notions of Deity figure in my life.  Which is not typically a … Continue reading →

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Moving Home, by @jackaurquhart

©2014 by Jack A. Urquhart   939 words I own a house.  I have owned it for several years. It is the house I grew up in from early adolescence, although until recently, I had not lived in it for over … Continue reading →

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Mom’s Christmas Tree, by @jackaurquhart

©2013 by Jack A. Urquhart               631 words This is my Mom’s Christmas tree.  Her last Christmas tree.  A balsam fir, I think it is. Ray and I bought it for her on December 5th.  A Thursday.  We brought it over … Continue reading →

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Sleigh Bells Ring, a Christmas Memory, by @jackaurquhart

©2013 by Jack A. Urquhart        937 words It was 1960, I think.  I would’ve been almost twelve that year—too old to believe in Santa Claus.  My tendency to engage in pre-Christmas snooping had seen to that.  By then, it had … Continue reading →

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