Poetic license
Sensible and sensitive Jess Morton’s transition from physics to poetry by Bondo Wyszpolski For half a century, JB Kennedy sold secondhand books, moving from one South Bay beach town to another. My initial encounter with him was in the late 1970s when his bookstore was on Pier Avenue in Hermosa Beach. He later owned a shop on Pacific Coast Highway in Redondo, then went to San Pedro for a few years before ending up in Torrance. It was in the San Pedro store that I first met Jess Morton. In addition to selling books, Kennedy (who passed away in 2020) was a poet and critic, and a frequent contributor to Random Lengths in San Pedro and Easy Reader in Hermosa. On more than one occasion he suggested that I write a story about Jess Morton. Well, this is that story; a little late for JB but just in time for you. Although Morton didn’t start out to be a poet, he’s self-published something like 17 books of poetry. These vary from chapbooks to colorful photo-poem volumes. As he writes on the dedication page of “Findings” (2019), “these poems would not have existed but for the encouragement of my poet sister Grace and long discussions of art, music, literature and criticism with JB Kennedy…
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