Description
Poetry. DOWN WITH THE SHIP is Ryan Murphy's first full-length collection of poetry. A staff member at the Academy of American Poets in New York, Murphy's work echoes a few other poets who've haunted that fair city-names like Berrigan and Ceravolo come to mind-but this is no mere derivative exercise. With a fine ear for cadence and an eye for the odd and illuminating line break, Murphy gleans the U.S. cultural landscape for both detritus and diamonds in the rough, emerging with a unique post-millennial blend of torqued language and affecting (if also disembodied) confession. In this beat-up world we can bat clean-up for the L.A. Dodgers and find joy in "That same old feeling,/a pop song" and yet at once concur that we fight darker thoughts, that "It is wrong/to want to punt/the child that wails/in the night." A fine debut.
Author Bio
Ryan Murphy is the author of MILLBROOK, THE REDCOATS, and DOWN WITH THE SHIP. He has received grants and awards from the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Chelsea Magazine, The Fund For Poetry, and The New York State Foundation for the Arts. He is an associate director of Four Way Books.
Author City: MILLBROOK, NY USA