In Michael Ryan's first collection since his 2004 Kingsley Tufts Award-winning "New and Selected Poems," he draws on his gift for story and song to fashion poems that are at times dark, absurd, and funny. In "Half Mile Down," he displays his consummate skill as a formal poet: "My sick heart and my sick soul/ I'd gladly fasten in a bag/ and drop into an ocean-hole/ to float in darkness as a rag." In "Airplane Food," he uses free verse to describe a situation any reader will quickly recognize: "Compressed chicken product, festive succotashed rice, / dead iceberg lettuce with a pale cherry tomato/ hard as a mothball . . ." Playful, irreverent, poignant, and uncompromising, "This Morning" exhibits a range of themes and styles that only an original and masterful poet of Ryan's stature can produce. What may surprise Ryan's readers the most are the notes of hard-won joy and consolation expressed at the book's conclusion. "This Morning" lives up to Edward Hirsch's observation that Ryan's "gift for going for the jugular" has produced a vision that's "finely honed, provocative, questing, and humane." AUTHOR: Michael Ryan is the author of four volumes of poetry, two memoirs, and a collection of essays. He is a professor of English and creative writing at the University of California.
