This website contains the fantasy poetry and flash fiction of Jon Gutmacher.   If you like short stories and flash fiction – especially in poetic form – you’ve found the right place.  To me, the critical element in everything is “the story”.    I write a mix of many different types of poems – everything from free verse, to traditional rhyme, to a mix of everything in one place.  However,  as I’ve indicated, almost all my poems comprise a complete story — and qualify both as “poetry” as well as “flash fiction”.  This is intentional.  Likewise, I write as I please.  You may wonder why I sometimes mix styles together — but that’s just the way I write.  As a poet,  I believe I have the  absolute choice to write exactly how I please,  free from traditional rules.   My only rules are:  if the words flow – if the story is clear – that’s all that’s necessary.  I also believe that each poem should normally have an image background to “set the mood” of the poem.  I have taken these images from the web, and often there was no way of knowing who the artist was who created the image.  I’ve done the best I can trying to find the creators, and putting that information at the end of the poem, and if you happen to see an image you recognize, and know the artist – please let me know  so I can add that in.  Of course, the artwork is separately owned by the artist who created it.

You might also be interested in knowing that many of my  fantasy poems and flash fiction are written in allegory, especially the fantasy poetry.  By that, I mean that I have taken a modern event or concern, and placed it back into another time — a time where magic, dragons, knights, wizards, witches, and damsels in distress were common.  For instance,  “The Good King” , which is about a once celebrated knight who has fallen on hard times, is really a story about the plight of our veterans, who return from multiple deployments, and then face homelessness and other serious problems due to PTSD, and a government that doesn’t care enough.  If I see something on the news that really concerns me – it often creates an inescapable urge to write, and winds up as a fantasy poem in allegory.  I rarely write unless an inspired urge comes over me.  When that happens,  I feel compelled to write – and the story comes quickly.   I either do it immediately – or the story and mood are lost forever. 

For whatever it’s worth – I began writing fantasy poetry back in 2010 after a serious shoulder injury.  It was a way of dealing with the extreme pain, and a long period of healing.  Within ten months my website was ranked with the top three “fantasy poetry” websites in the nation, and by the end of a year – it was ranked #1 in the nation for fantasy poetry and fantasy poems for almost five years straight. I then stopped writing for two years, and only recently have  decided to redo the website, and perhaps start writing again.

Last,  the subjects of my poems are varied, and certainly not all  fantasy poems.  While my first love is definitely fantasy — I write on many subjects, some very contemporary.  However, all of them  normally contain a complete story, albeit as flash fiction, and most will be in poetic form —  in the way I like to write it — and often have a moral at the end.  So,  that’s the story.  You’ll find each poem as a post in the LIST OF POEMS section of this website.   Hope you enjoy the work, and please let me know what you think by sending a comment.