RitualandBit Format: TradePaperback

The landscape of Ritual and Bit is littered with the speaker’s past: empty 40s, old posters, family lies, and fragmented missives. Internal struggles play out in the detritus of long-ago. Yet even as the speaker attempts to cautiously map his movements, effect a survival, and navigate beyond his past, he faces emotional fissures wrought by the present. Throughout the book, he restlessly searches for ways to regain control of his life, partly through ceremonies, prayers, and devotions, and partly through lyrical force. The danger is palpable among wolves and claws, boxcutter and jackknife. There’s both caution here and a willingness to abandon caution if anything or anyone could be reached. The poems ask, What makes a home? What should we expect when we are so determined to live in a world where everything is disappearing?

ROBERT OSTROM is the author of The Youngest Butcher in Illinois (2012). He teaches at New York City College of Technology and Columbia University, and lives in Ridgewood, New York.