In The Sweet Spot in the Chaos, poet Jonathan Potter offers a deeply meditative collection of poems rooted in the rhythms of the I Ching, the ancient Chinese Book of Changes. Spanning nearly 700 pages and organized into 64 sections corresponding to the I Ching's hexagrams, this expansive work moves through dream, memory, sunrise, and transformation with lyrical insight and spiritual clarity.
Drawing on daily reflections, vivid dreams, and moments of quiet revelation, Potter weaves personal experience with universal archetype. From airports and riverbanks to gardens, back streets, and bedsides, his poems are grounded in the textures of lived life—yet always listening for what lies beneath the surface.
At the heart of the book is a paradox: how to find stillness amid motion, light within darkness, wholeness in a fractured world. Whether invoking the comic absurdities of modern life or the ancient cadence of ritual dawns, The Sweet Spot in the Chaos is a sustained meditation on renewal, presence, and poetic becoming.
A companion for readers of Wallace Stevens, Mary Oliver, and the Tao Te Ching, this is a book to live with—not just read once, but return to again and again, hexagram by hexagram, season by season.
The Sweet Spot in the Chaos, by Jonathan Potter, forthcoming summer 2025 from Korrektiv Press