This website contains a portion of  the fantasy poems, speculative poetry, and  flash fiction of Jon Gutmacher that I consider among my best fantasy poems and work.   If you like short stories  – especially in poetic form – you’ve found the right place.  For instance, my early fantasy poem, The Dream, is a haunting love story that will pull you into its center as it envelopes you.  Likewise, my more recent fantasy poem and voted a “best poem”, “A British Soldier in Zululand“, takes you into the Zulu battlefield just like Kipling would have done two hundred years ago.  If you want a terrific fantasy poem based on a very popular song, try The Yellow Ribbon, and take a trip on a Greyhound Bus into the past while you shed a tear.  For a story almost one century old, my very popular fantasy poem, Rainbow Bridge, that tells the tale of pets awaiting their master or mistress after their passing.  Or, the very popular Disney type fantasy poems Hansel and Gretel, Beauty and the Beast, or my ‘best poem”, Snow White.

All of these, and more – are fantasy poems as a complete story.  To me, the critical element in everything is “the story”.    I write a mix of many different types of fantasy poems, and other work – 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”, speculative poems, 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.

For whatever it’s worth – I began writing fantasy poems primarily 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 decided to redo the website again in September 2018.

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,  and almost all 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 a list of poems at the very bottom of any poem, and also a limited list on the right side of each poem.