Mozartís Starling
Ralph Burns
Ralph Burns's first book, Us,won the Great Lakes Colleges Award (1983). His second book, Any Given Day,was published by The University of Alabama Press in 1985. His poems have appeared in Poetry, The Atlantic, The Ohio Review, Field,and many others.
I believe it was Albert Camus who praised Henry Fonda for his Americanness. I'd like to praise Ralph Burnsís poetry for the same quality, but I lack the Franchman's distance and disinterest. Still, if Albert Camus wanted to know what was American in our poetry right now, what showed the breadth of our language and the honesty of its utterance, what was the best of American langue et parole,Iíd show him Ralph Burns's poems and especially the ones in this book. They are the genuine article. --Mark Jarman
Ralph Burns writes: And when has happiness/explained its
own dark birth,/or sadness its borrowed nest?Clarity, directness,
the eloquence of poetic sound and rhythm, qualities I sometimes
think have passed out of American writing. Then here comes Burns,
so reassuringly. He is a fine, fine poet, and his . . . book is
an event of real importance. --Hayden Carruth
64 Pages
list price $8.95: Contact author at rmburns@ualr.edu for more
information