The Border

Rattan, Cleatus

ISBN 10: 1881515478 / ISBN 13: 9781881515470

Published by Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas, 2002

About this Item

Fine.; 8vo.

Seller Inventory # 147236

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Border
• Publisher: Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas
• Publication Date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1881515478
• ISBN 13: 9781881515470
• Binding: Softcover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Weight: 2 pounds
• Seller catalogs:
  • Poetry

About this title

Synopsis

From sonnet to free verse, from rime to slant rime, Cleatus Rattan's poems gather the past to inspect the future. His efforts to generate emotion transport the reader to vivid views of a family on the edge of new ways of examining the next stage of lives carefully planned for emotional possibilities. In the title poem, which ends this collection, Rattan allows his readers to "Motor through familiar lands/ and see the comfortable/ well developed plans./ Note a warping red gable/ and high cloud-filled unending skies./ Pass through flat lands until you see/ the end--and old state with no guard./ Then turn to home and tell no lies/ about an easy relaxing journey,/ but hold the vision in high regard." Rattan's lyrics wield a powerful musical dictation to the rhythm in the dance from border to border.
 

About the Author

A former marine, CLEATUS RATTAN ranches a hundred miles west of Fort Worth near the little town of Cisco, a small town of some three thousand souls cinched by the Bible Belt. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals, and he is the author of two poetry chapbooks: Free of the Flesh and 130 Miles to Dallas, winner of the 1982 Texas Review Poetry Prize; in 1996 he won the Mesquite Prize and in 2002 the New Texas Poetry Prize. Rattan recently retired from the English Department at Cisco Community College. He and his wife Connie have three sons, all doctors.