PORTRAIT MINIATURES, poetry by James K. Zimmerman

Publication Date: September 15, 2026

Paperback, 108 pages 

ISBN: 978-1-966677-57-4

Portrait Miniatures, the new collection of poems by James K. Zimmerman, lives up to its title, creating word portraits of a diverse cast of characters ranging from Tina, at home in her land of mushrooms and cows, to Flaco, the eagle owl of Central Park. These portrait poems, visual in their descriptions, reveal the poet’s keen observation of subjects both human and non.

Praise for James K. Zimmerman & Portrait Miniatures

“In each person,” Auguste Rodin argued, “…there is life, the most essential ingredient for art. And so in each person there is the potential for a masterpiece.” My bet is James  K. Zimmerman would agree with the great sculptor, for in his latest poetry collection – Portrait Miniatures – we find a remarkable wellspring of generosity and attention for the individual. From Eve after Eden to Cyndi Sue selling blueberries in Maine to Salman Rushdie strolling cobblestone streets alone and without security to grieving partners and wayward souls, Zimmerman’s admirable range and felicity with language make plain the vast potential for beauty in us all.

—Jared Harél, author of Let Our Bodies Change the Subject

Perhaps in another life along the slalom of multiverses, poet James K. Zimmerman was a docent in an art gallery. It would certainly appear so, given the detailed portraits and fine sketches he walks us through in his latest, Portrait Miniatures. Zimmerman populates his thriving exhibition with a cast that touches you “not with rasping lace / but with the talons of … sadness,” or places you in a room where “the walls speak / in the dialect of powdered plaster.” Zimmerman understands inherently, intuits naturally, that the beauty of any art is that it lives both in the moment and beyond it as well. Portrait Miniatures paints its characters in humor, dreams, tragedy, and transcendence. This collection is vibrantly alive.

—Mike Jurkovic, author of Circling Planes

Time is the great leveler in this tender portrait folio, laying a weatherbeaten Maine blueberry seller and an ape-boy to rest side by side with Icarus, Robert Bly, and the girl who broke Sappho’s heart. Tattooed mythic symbols fade like stale memes—yet an all-too-brief existence may birth an enduring legend, like Flaco the Central Park Zoo Owl. Whose life can be folded into a single page that floats away on the wind? Everyone—the man so “successful” that mundanities blind him to star-fire, and the man whose imagination soars with death-defying aviators while he hides the shame of unemployment from his children. But if each life is equally transient, each is also equally holy in this poet’s eyes. Zimmerman calls to mind a phrase from Thomas Gray's mock-obituary for himself in “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”: “Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere.”

—Jendi Reiter, editor of Winning Writers, author of Origin Story

James K. Zimmerman’s work rings out through space with spectacular sincerity. With perspective playing a critical role in all of his work, the persona poem is his muse within this collection. Each piece seeks to examine the lessons derived from diverse lived experiences without relinquishing the fundamental elements of the human condition: humor and tragedy. Zimmerman craftily creates space for quietness within pivotal moments – “I live in a dream of flying / with ravens to a yolk- / and-lemon moon, riding / on a cloak of midnight” – while also embracing intensity and emotional excess in others – “my hand / on the halting sigh / of your chest / the crumpled arms / of your pain / the seisms / of your fear.” Portrait Miniatures reveals how unexpected vulnerability shapes the ever-shifting contours of our lived experiences.

—Kristine Esser Slentz, author of Carnations & Car Crashes

About the Author

James K. Zimmerman’s poetry appears in Chicago Quarterly Review, Folio, Lumina, minnesota review, Nimrod, Pleiades, Rattle, Reed, Salmagundi, and numerous other journals and anthologies. A frequent Pushcart Prize nominee, his writing has won many awards, including the Edwin Markham, E.E. Cummings, Vern Cowles, Pat Schneider, and Hart Crane Prizes. Author of five books of poetry – most recently The Further Adventures of Zen Patriarch Dōgen, Uncertainty, and Unbroken Circle, Unending Thread – his poetry is featured on websites such as The Poetry Foundation and American Life in Poetry. He values his neurodivergence as an essential wellspring of his creative process.