A critically acclaimed poet explores the parallels between riot-torn Los Angeles and Prague, the crux of the newly divided Czechoslovakia, reflecting on the nature of divisions--ethnic, cultural, and political--in resonant, delicately crafted verse.

The Hunger Wall

Literature & Fiction

Ragan, James

Poetry

GROVE PRESS

In Lusions, the internationally acclaimed poet James Ragan casts his eye on modern and ancient history in poems that put an original spin on the progression of the world. These are lyrical and witty poems about change and cultural evolution from an intellectual and insightful mind. Ragan explores humankind's cultural and mythical identities - from Prehistory, in which he muses on the "Birth of God (from an Early Photograph)" and "The Pebble Culture," when our distant ancestors turned "violence into culture," to the New World, where he covers such topics as Tuzla, the inner city, and the construction of a city mall. Once he catches up to the Premillennium, Ragan's poems are overwhelmed by a return to nature, perhaps the only antidote to our electronic age. Through brilliant wordplay and striking images, Lusions invents a mysterious and imaginative discourse on the point where the past and the present meet and the impact they have on a fragmented culture.

Lusions (Grove Press Poetry Series)

In 1992, critically acclaimed poet James Ragan was in Los Angeles when riots exploded across racial and class lines. That same year he was also living in Prague when Czechoslovakia divided into two separate nations, motivated by the principles of "nationalism." This odd coincidence forms the crux of his new, eagerly anticipated book of poetry. The poems in The Hunger Wall, named for a wall near the Prague Castle, take these two cultural sensibilities that seem worlds apart and explore the subtle nuances of their unlikely similarities. In beautifully crafted and metaphorically rich language, Ragan studies what it means to set a "border," whether it be political, racial, or economic. The Hunger Wall examines a continually changing world — a world of shifting cultural identities in which the widening gap between the rich and the poor is dangerously explosive.

The Hunger Wall: Poems

Too Long a Solitude

A new collection from the world-renowned lyricist Acclaimed American poet James Ragan begins this newest collection of poems by asking whether “a rope could swing us / long and light across a widening trough / of all that fails us in our lives.” With these very first lines, Ragan draws readers into his world of vivid metaphor and evocative imagery, a world tinged with an aching sense of loss born of “a mind bereaved by solitude.” Yet if Ragan needs solitude to construct his poems, we are inspired to join him. In Too Long a Solitude, he takes us on far-flung journeys from equatorial jungles to Arctic icebergs and from heartbreaking loneliness to ecstatic human connection. Readers become travelers, with Ragan their insightful guide. “Ragan’s fine-grained poems move us through a remarkable range of total dexterity,” says poet C. K. Williams, and a strong streak of Wordsworthian nature-worship runs through the book. In “Bowing Trees,” this contemporary lyricist sings of saplings tending “to their ground as if the space were an altar.” His itinerant attention focuses in turn on the hills of London, rural roads in Belgium, and a garden wall in Vienna. Some journeys have the specificity of a scene witnessed (a Paris alley that might have entranced Picasso); others are journeys of the mind (a ride caught on an ice floe heading north out of Hudson Bay). Too Long a Solitude migrates from isolation to communion. Beginning alone on an iceberg, we eventually find ourselves at one with a lover in a moonlit vale. As solitude lifts and the journey ends, the poet finds he need no longer travel to find solace. But we’re glad, all the same, to have shared the journey with him.

University of Oklahoma Press

In the talking hours: Poems Paperback 1979 Book Signed by James Ragan. raw energy and emotional power like a collection of classic paintings brought forth in a new retrospective. Hailed by Josephine Miles as an authoritative voice who will be recognized as an important voice, this distinguished collection is imbued with the social turbulence of the times and emotions of a young poet coming to terms with his family, mortality and the absurdities of modernity.

In the talking hours: Poems

Eden Hall Press : distributed by Illuminati

Romance darkly in AMOUR SOMBRE, the premiere print anthology from Danse Macabre ~ An Online Literary Magazine and Hammer &amp; Anvil Books. Featuring authors from around the world and beyond the grave, AMOUR SOMBRE caresses readers with the chill of ardour, the thrill of passion, and the poisonous pills of the melancholy and the macabrely. AMOUR SOMBRE is a literary cornucopia of dark delights that will grip readers of the imaginative like friendly (and perhaps not so friendly) shadows in the night.

Amour Sombre: A Danse Macabre Anthology

Keith, Michael C.

Bond, Bruce

Verlee, Jeanann

O'Keefe Aptowicz, Cristin

Sheehan, Tom

Erdely-Sibenburgen, Dr. AHC

Hoffman, Roxanne

Marra, Peter

Webb-Pullman, Mercedes

Genre Fiction

Independently published

Womb-Weary: Poems

Birch Lane Pr

First printing, a trade paperback, issued simultaneously with hardcover. His second collection of poems (also preceded by several plays) - one which Yevtushenko called a "testament to universal brotherhood." 59 pp.

&#65279;Praise for James Ragan's Poetry:"James Ragan's poems spare no passion in believing they sing."Seamus Heaney, Nobel Prize Winner"Ragan dominates the art of image, the art of poetic line, and the art of poetic narration with insight that marks major poets."Miroslav Holub, Nobel Prize Nominee"James Ragan's poems are satisfying and distinctive, full of arresting collocations and striking phrases."Richard Wilbur, U.S. Poet Laureate"I admire James Ragan's sense of history and, within that, his instinct to praise."Jean Valentine, National Book Award Winner"Fine-grained and witty, a remarkable range of history, thematic variety, and tonal dexterity."C.K. Williams, Pulitzer Prize Winner"James Ragan is a snake charmer whose words work real magic."Henry Taylor, Pulitzer Prize Winner"In Jim Ragan's poetry, there is a lyrical wisdom. It is this juxtaposition that makes his work so exhilarating."Studs Terkel, Pulitzer Prize Winner

The Chanter's Reed

Literary

Salmon Poetry

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ragan, James. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Ragan, James

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ragan, James. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Hunger Wall

Lusions (Grove Press Poetry Series)

The Hunger Wall: Poems

Too Long a Solitude

Too Long a Solitude

In the talking hours: Poems

Amour Sombre: A Danse Macabre Anthology

Womb-Weary: Poems

Womb-Weary: Poems

The Chanter's Reed