Matter (Kuhl House Poets) - Softcover

Ramke, Bin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0877459002 ISBN 13: 9780877459002

Publisher: University Of Iowa Press, 2004

Synopsis

Bin Ramke's poetry has always been concerned with separating the real from the wished-for or the feared. In Matter, Ramke investigates not only the physical realities of our world but the qualities that make things important to us, that give them weight. These poems, often in the voice of a child, are full of yearning and anguish but also an appreciation for the enhanced perceptions and small pleasures to be found among the sadness. All lost things have the same voice, he says, and this universal voice reminds us of home and family and the simple connections of ordinary life - the things that matter. When I was a saint, begins the first poem, I did not have visions but I could see and did note the color of the world. Matter is an examination of and a report on the world's variable colors and possibilities for, if not sanctity, then a certain sanity, a kindness, and some form of salvation.

About this title

About the Author

Bin Ramke has published seven previous books of poems, including Massacre of the Innocents (Iowa 1995), Wake (Iowa 1999), and one of the first Kuhl House Poets books, Airs, Waters, Places (Iowa 2001). The editor of the Denver Quarterly, he teaches creative writing at the University of Denver and at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

from This World s Exuberant Surface

Next came
a color of the air, next the rain
and the day moved on day
being a convention of design,
day being the accident of sunlight
grinding against a turning world.
This one.

Edition details

• Publisher: University Of Iowa Press
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0877459002
• ISBN 13: 9780877459002
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 102