Original Bodies

by Doug Ramspeck

Poetry. ORIGINAL BODIES explores the primitive mindset, the ancient brain that exists within us all. Most of us don't believe that three crows in a black willow tree portend death, that a dry steam bed suggests that a spouse or relative will have a miscarriage, that we can read our lives in the entrails of a pickerel frog or in a hognose snakeskin found draped beside a river bank. But we do wish that we might gain some small control over our destinies. Residing half in the real world and half in the dream world, the poems accentuate the slipperiness we often feel between the corporeal and incorporeal, which is the source of both our fears and longings.

60 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2014

About the author

Doug Ramspeck's most recent collection, Original Bodies, was selected for the Michael Waters Poetry Prize for Southern Indiana Review Press. Two earlier books also received awards: Mechanical Fireflies (Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize), and Black Tupelo Country (John Ciardi Prize). Individual poems have appeared in journals that include Kenyon Review, Slate, Southern Review, and Georgia Review. He directs the Writing Center and teaches creative writing at The Ohio State University at Lima.

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous! One of my all-time favorite poetry books.

[Anatoly Molotkov · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The winter my father became/a crow, he must have flown/out of the green ash, joining//the birds filling the field's/quadrant of dull sky." Ramspeck's tender investigation into mortality brims with priceless discoveries in thought and language and employs nature as a mirror against which human predicaments are measured. Many treasures are to be found here.