Original Bodies - by Doug Ramspeck (Paperback)

About the Book

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.

Book Synopsis

Winner of the 2013 Michael Waters Poetry Prize

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 or 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, these poems accentuate the slipperiness we often feel between the corporeal and incorporeal, which is the source of both our fears and longings.

About the Author

Doug Ramspeck is the author of four previous poetry collections. His most recent book, Mechanical Fireflies (2011), won the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize, and his first, Black Tupelo Country (BkMk Press, 2008), won the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry. His poems have appeared in journals that include The Kenyon Review, Slate, The Southern Review, and The Georgia Review. Ramspeck is an associate professor at The Ohio State University at Lima, where he teaches creative writing and directs the Writing Center.