Books published by Ragged Sky Press

Some 40 of the 80 poems in the collection Agitations and Allelujas, authored by Harvey Steinberg and published by Ragged Sky Press, first saw the light of day in literary publications ranging from those containing a variety of genres, such as Wisconsin Review, Epicenter, Diner, Aries, and dozens more, to those that specialize: in form (The Lyric), attitude (Parody), and content (Dissections). The subjects the poet writes about differ widely too. A reader will take excursions into singular behaviors ("At sixty he still plays hockey on the frozen lake/and urges boys to clip him, aggrieves them so they must") and subliminal reveries that culminate in action ("portents toll to fasten acquiescence/. . . come day's toils I'll do what needs be done."). Steinberg's wealth of worldly experience, accompanied by substantial credentials in the arts and the academy, impel the book's diversity of themes and prosody: reflections on Hemingway and Matisse in free verse and of Dickinson in rhymed quatrain; a passionate sonnet of abandoned love ("Love's Losings") in counterpoint with licentious limericks; sightings into war, Americana, the outdoors, China, Poland; imaginings about myth-laden Greece. Humor, outrage, sighs are embedded in this volume. "Art," says Steinberg, "is taking risks."

This is a collection of original poems by Christopher Bursk. The poems are inspired by Vergil's Aeneid and deal with modern issues of love, loss, family, masculinity, and more. Many of the epigraphs are in Latin from the Aeneid and some are translated into English.

We never planned to write this book. In 2017, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa was working on an epic poem and part of it took place at Classics Books. Independently, I was working on some flash fiction that also took place at Classics Books. We bumped into each other (at Classics Books) and decided that we should collaborate on a collection of poems and stories that all take place at our favorite bookstore. We thought a collection of excellent work with a shared setting-and a shared love of bookstores and the people in them-might be an exciting project. We reached out to some of our favorite writers and artists to make it happen.

Look Again is a book of scrupulous and relentless looking, scrupulous thinking, scrupulous judgment of our "incurable" world, with its human and animal cruelties....but sees, as well,the world's myriad exquisitely detailed lives, from "green's dream of itself" in April beech trees, to "how resistant living things seem/to giving in." And it is a book full of creatures bursting with life-life for which Danson amazingly always finds the right words. -Alicia Ostriker, author of Waiting for the Light

Miss Plastique, the fourth full-length poetry collection by Lynn Levin, invites the reader into a world of female bravado in which Miss Plastique and her many selves rant, fret, joke, fall in love, dress up, and do their hair. Poems inthis collection first appeared in Boulevard, Artful Dodge, Hunger Mountain, Connecticut Review, Knockout, Nerve Cowboy, and other places.Lynn Levin, a poet known for her eclecticism, humor, and range of poetic styles, is the author of the previous poetry collections Fair Creatures of an Hour, a Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist in poetry; Imaginarium, a finalist for ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Award; and A Few Questions about Paradise (all from Loonfeather Press). Her craft of poetry book, Poemsfor the Writing: Prompts for Poets (with Valerie Fox) is forthcoming from Texture Press in 2013. Lynn Levin is also a writer and literary translator. She has received nine Pushcart Prize nominations, two grants from the Leeway Foundation, and Garrison Keillor has read her work on his radio show The Writer's Almanac. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Levin has lived in thePhiladelphia area since 1980. She is the 1999 Bucks County, Pa. poet laureate and currently teaches at Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania.Advance praise for Miss Plastique:Miss Plastique is a busy girl: giving it to her enemy in stiletto heels, giving it up to an Elvis impersonator, thumbing a ride across Texas. She has turned from the mirror and can't look back. She's sexy and seductive and refuses to be pinned down; she's silk so fluid you could drink her-read her instead, but watch she doesn't explode in your hands. -Meg Kearney, author of Home By NowThe poems in Lynn Levin's Miss Plastique hold their tension between fantasy and devastation. -Jill Alexander Essbaum, author of NecropolisThis book is just as explosive as plastique and packed as tightly and with the impeccable craft you'd expect from a good detonation expert. Lynn Levin has the perfect timing and sensitive touch of one who works with volatile materials-an Elvis impersonator, the Beav and Eddie Haskell,Gaspara Stampa, Eve and Lilith at Macy's. We are better for the aftershocks of this verse. -Christopher Bursk, author of The Improbable Swervings of Atoms

The poems in this collection have a level gaze. We smile at the foibles of people and relationships exposed here-the church organist, Snow White, the carefully balanced "un-couple"-yet finally we're sympathetically implicated with them. Spare, quick-moving narratives carry us along for a day at the beach, a family reunion, a last ferry ride, each of which is more-is a key to the meaning of a life. Foos is particularly appealing when writing about flawed but loving families. These are deeply compassionate poems. Even a searing political poem-and it's a knockout-gets its power as much from sorrow as from anger. After all, as Foos says, we're just happy mutts, "looking for crowns for our efforts." "These poems open with the relentless push of small flowers. They grow in a tight corner plot bright with iris, marigold, and brave truth." -Michael R. Brown, author of The Man Who Makes Amusement Rides "I simply can't resist a poet whose prayer is 'Give us this day our daily bread/in the form of toast'-or who gives drowned virgins a second chance to 'tread the mucky earth.' Ellen Foos' work combines startling candor with effervescent wit. She makes being human seem breathtakingly easy, a difficult task in a world as complicated and cluttered as our own. Read her and you can't help but be refreshed. This is a book of small, big, and offbeat pleasures." - Elaine Equi, author of The Cloud of Knowable Things