James K. Zimmerman. Uncertainty. Bottlecap Press. 2026. 40 pgs. $10.00
How
do humans confront the global mess they’ve created? Why do people claim
priority over plants, animals, and earthly matter? Are we part of some
universal recurrence, or is our place here and now our only hope? Zimmerman’s
work poses the really big questions in accessible verse that is timely,
playful, and philosophic. His poetic voice is quizzical, concerned, and yet
thankful for life given. He ponders the creatures who came before us, evolved,
survived, and then drifted into extinction. He questions our abuse of earthly paradise
as we mass produce, overconsume, and discard the detritus of our lives into the
natural world inhabited by other living organisms.
This
poet challenges us to examine our false beliefs and shortcomings of supposed
superiority. We are weak, having exposed our vulnerability to industry and
technology. We’ve victimized ourselves through explosive modernization. In one
poem AI struggles with its own knowledge, doubts, and feelings, wondering what
humanity desires and if humans even know how to control their impulses. In
another poem, the narrator predicts apocalypse. Is he correct? The voice in
another poem comes from one who voyages far away from earth to meet others and
tell the good tales of “urgent love” but not of our avarice or warfare. But the
poet knows. The reader knows.
Deep
in the short collection comes the title poem, “Uncertainty.” Can we be aware of
our position or momentum if we battle between faith and science? Are we part of
some god’s design or merely an afterthought, playthings? Without a god the
responsibility of all life, the welfare of this green-blue planet, falls into
the hands of humans. How’s our record so far? The poem suggests that in our
lack of accountability we’re a failed experiment having fouled the paradise
gratuitously handed to us.
What
has our uncertainty wrought? The poet imagines the results, and they are not
pretty. Earth in a million years as barren except for bacterial slime in an
atmosphere of greenhouse gases, a renewal of the Darwinian existence of
selection, struggle, and a lottery of genetic inheritance. Still, amid despair,
one detects hope and aspiration in this poet as he asks us, whether through the
Sage Kashyapa or La Carrera de Santo Santiago, to start anew by seeding our
brains with the knowledge of our limitations so as to curb the damages of human
pride and egoism.
Whether
earthbound or cosmic, the poetic insights of Zimmerman in Uncertainty are
energetic and compelling verses worth reading. This is a recommended chapbook
for all earthlings.
-Reviewed by Gregory F. Tague
Copyright©2026
by Gregory F. Tague. All Rights Reserved.
