Fire And Rain Vol. 2: Selected Poems 1993-2007

by R.D. Armstrong

This is the second volume of poetry written in the last 15 years by RD Armstrong. This volume covers the years 1999 to 2007.

Genres: Poetry

154 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

RD Armstrong has been writing since high school, but it has only been in the last sixteen years that he has been his most consistent and prolific. Besides writing poetry and short fiction, he is also the publisher of the Little Red Book series (59 titles and counting)and for 11 years published the Lummox Journal, a small print digest of the literary arts. Many of the titles are available on the Lummox Press website.

In 2008 RD decided to publish a four volume collection of his best work: Fire and Rain - Selected Poems 1993-2007 Vols. 1 & 2; On/Off the Beaten Path - 3 Long Road Poems; and El Pagano and Other Twisted Tales (short stories).

Lummox Press also plans to publish a Best of the Little Red Books collection early in 2009, as well as, a collection of essays and a passage from The Name is Dillinger by Todd Moore.

Reviews

[R.d. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is volume 2 of this set, containing poems from 1999 to 2007. It has some of my best poems, I believe (although volume 1 has some pretty strong work in it as well.

[R.d. · Rating 5 out of 5]

”A strong, powerful sense of things coming to an end here. Armstrong-philosopher-poet still tells it the way it is, but keeps getting deeper and deeper, fuller of a feeling of final termination. And Armstrong’s most recent work gets further and further into meditative-religious contexts that really get to the reader: “I thought/of suicide/until I/remember/ed the taste/of fruit//The sound/of Buddha’s/voice lingers/in the ring/ing of the bell//Death comes when hope/has faded/beyond/memory//The blanket/of dreams/wraps us up/and carries us/away.” (“Four Short Poems,” 152.)It’s fun to watch him get experimentally philosophical and still hang on to an undercurrent of hard realism, which makes his work more powerful than ever, the combination of poetic artyness and a vision of the bitter, evaporating Now: “Eyes//like flint/like flecks of coal/like shiny bits of starless sky/trapped in the ruins of a slag heap/Eyes// like molten steel/sullen and angry/piercing--a bullet finding its mark/like a jaguar/passionate and alive.....” (“Eyes Like Mingus (For Steve Fowler),” p.133.Part of the Bukowskian-Winans heritage, Armstrong is a powerful blend of urban reality, aging and high art that he never allows to take over and blur his messages.”

Hugh Fox

"RD Armstrong's ‘Fire and Rain' is mostly all ball busters and roses. One of the best larger collections by an American poet, that this reader has read, in many moons"

Doug Draime

[Pris Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I literally couldn't put this book down. I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves good poetry that's both accessible and skillfully written.