James Jacob Hatfield is a displaced engineer, a painter, and many other contradictions. His work has appeared in X-R-A-Y, Maudlin House, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Barely South Review, Chaleur Magazine, Havik, and others. His ekphrasis poem “torrents of lahar, No. 36” was anthologized by the North Carolina Museum of Art. He is a Sterling Fellow and a Weymouth Fellow. He is the creator and curator of the Gemini Sessions Substack. He lives in Durham, NC.

Current

The average length of a stoplight in an area like this is about 33 seconds.

Purple Hand Man

I’m witnessing my own memories. The further the distance between Henry and me grew, the more I felt a separation not unlike a spirit and a body divorcing.

The Edible Part (or The Bottom Half of a Cut-Up Strawberry)

You have to be vague in your beliefs to accept a new god so easily so often.

True On Two Ships

I felt myself being overcome by a wave of hopeful euphoria. Convinced the answers to all my love problems were dependent on how much I could gag myself on this toothbrush without tapping out. 

The Ritual

He reinserts his dingy finger in my mouth behind my bottom row of teeth and my tongue instinctively retreats from it. He adjusts the light above him. Pulls out a thick Expo marker. Makes a list of all the teeth he’s going to rip out.

Beautiful

It’s not that I feel like I’m in danger it’s more like I’m uncomfortable because I don’t know if I am or not.

Psycle

My hindsight doesn’t (clearly) tell me if the isolation of my youth was self-inflicted or a side-effect. So my default is to hate where I’m from. My bias filter only lasts as long as I’m there which is why I come as infrequently as possible.

Nostalgia

It’s like her spirit disintegrated into every corner of every wall in this house. Every blemish, every unfolded blanket, every mismatched coffee mug. Everything. 

Strawberry

a patient avalanche of

     rolling molasses spit candlelit

          rose and sunflower petals

torrents of lahar, No. 36

Marcus's eyes are lost and flat grey like old quarters. He's clocked into a fugue state that's taking his attention to a higher power. As if something in the fluorescent light bulb is revealing all the secrets of life. But really, Marcus is peaking.

Lugnut

Dad didn’t want to go into town since the sonars or radios or airwaves or radars in the trees would know what he was doing. He mumbled about satellites.

James J. Hatfield

Selected work