Full Description
"I set desire / on fire / and she screamed/ I couldn't tell / if the scream / was agony / or ecstasy
what's the difference?" - From 'What's Left'
"and when we settle into our dens at night, we talk of you, as one might talk of a cupped hand, fading slowly, the rest of the body long departed: a rusty bucket, offering water-all that's left of a god. " - From 'Somewhere in Indiana'
Ricky Ray entwines the beauty of the world and his love of life with the weight of physical pain he shoulders daily, in this stunning chapbook which urges you to find new meaning in nature's mysterious workings: "Every time I look up/ into a canopy, I see a mind at work."
In The Sound of the Earth Singing to Herself, Ricky Ray invokes the animalistic yet the utterly, undeniably humane. Visiting the most intimate corners of memory, this is a chapbook that promises linguistic prowess and the healing - however raw - of the ache of living. From Indiana, Florida, and Oklahoma to the inescapable moment of our own death, the moment the sun sinks below the horizon, the moment 'the cancer / bloomed like an angry / flower in her liver', Ray's language is masterful, transfixed on elevating the mundane and exposing every private moment of our existence. - Kayla Jenkins, Writer
Contents
Prelude: Quiet Opens the Door
Sometimes Vision Withers on the Vine
The End of My Brother
A Thimbleful of Blood
What's Left
(Dis)ability
Toward What
The Dance
The Dream
Somewhere in Indiana
So Long As There Is Light, There Is Song
Hunger
Rascal
Glad of the Quiet
Day of My Death
Death on the Iron Escape
My Favourite Sweater
Impatience
My Favorite Time of Day Is When the Light ...
On Hurricanes
We Carry More than We Can Tell
Lamb's Lung: Addie's Favorite Treat
Read Slowly
Hannah
So Tired Any Rest Is Grace
Another Poet Supernovas into the Dark
Picking Myself Up Off the Floor
A Walk in the Woods
