Shadows of the Pines

Shadows of the Pines, a comic novella in verse, introduces readers to Harold Rava, a poet who teaches poetry in a storefront juku during the day and in a rundown restaurant, the Pines of Rome, at night. Leading the franchise is a struggle for Harold. There is no money in poetry. The audience is roughly the size of the number of practitioners. But the subversive Rava School-which teaches students to make what Gerard Manley Hopkins called "great strokes of havoc"-could change all that. Unfortunately, the school's mission-creating an audience of millions of enthusiasts, one person a time-is beyond its grasp. To be successful. Harold must get the help of his teachers, the ghosts of poets and thinkers-Auden, Borges, Buber, Montale, Saba, J.B. Yeats, and others-who visit him each night at the Pines, And he must learn to better treat the words he writes, who rebel against him. Harold ultimately recognizes that it will not be the United States but Albania where poetry will flourish. Readers unfamiliar with poetry can simply enjoy the ride and be taken by the book's rhythm and riddles, its characters and comedy, for it is all Dreamland, a poetic narrative where anyone can enter.

Sheppard Ranbom is a poet based in Washington, DC where he lives with his wife, Mary-Mack Callahan. He is the author of King Philip's War, I Didn't Know Kyoto, and Shadows of the Pines.