FEAR OF FISH

POEMS BY BILL RATNER

“Bill Ratner’s poetry is fearless and irreverent. He has gone through the tunnel and lived to tell the tale. He invites you to leave the shallow waters and meet him in the deep end.”—Rachel Kann, How to Bless the New Moon, Ben Yehuda Press

• • •

“Like a good storyteller, Ratner sidles up to you, whispers the opening of a tale, then brings in the big guns of poetry to make it all work. These poems are masterful, touching, evocative, and Ratner himself is a master-builder at work, a man who shapes words out of airy nothing and commands them to speak.”—Jack Grapes, Last of the Outsiders, Chatwin Press

• • •

“These highly original poems stir things up—a wild concoction of exploration, confession, and surreal fantasy, each topped with a soupçon of wry wit. Whether mourning the early demise of his family or riffing on being the one left behind to come of age on his own, Ratner’s poems find life’s humor and sweetness. They kick off their shoes and dance with Death.”–Alexis Rhone Fancher, author of Junkie Wife, Poetry editor of Cultural Weekly.

• • •

Bill Ratner’s vocation is words. He knows what happens when they bump up against each other. His poems are by turns lyric and experiential. They invoke humor, grief, and inconsolate longing, often at the same time.

—Jill Alexander Essbaum, Would-Land, Cooper Dillon Books