Michael Rattee

FORTHCOMING in FEBRUARY 2010 a new book from Adastra Press:

FALLING OFF THE BICYCLE FOREVER

Some comments on the book:

Michael Rattee’s poems are like that of a body of still water, calm on the surface yet having great depth. Repeated readings always lead to new discoveries.
-- David Chorlton

Through a brilliant understatement that goes beyond the need for
punctuation, Michael Rattee's poems search out one vivid mask after
another for the questing spirit who lurks behind his splendid talent.
-- L. D. Clark, Novelist and Literary Critic.

There’s a musing quality of simplicity and mystery in Michael Rattee’s poems, an honoring of the moment while never far from the dream or remembering. Like Kafka, Ignatow, cummings, and painters like Chagall, Rattee knows that life is not devoid of whimsy. Chasing after a bus can seem like a karmic sentence, and a dream can be more real than the daily grind. There’s angst here too, for his personae are on the edge, the existential edge, afraid to be left behind, and aware of the inevitable failure of most of our hopes. Lullaby and Practice are masterly treatments of the way one generation wishes the next well with our betrayed planet. This book is an important addition to our nation’s poetry of concern for all life.
-- David Ray, author of Music of Time: Selected and New Poems

Michael Rattee has blossomed into a remarkably good poet, sure-footed and
dazzling. He is one of the leading poets of the family and domesticity in
America today, and it's startling how he gets it right in poem after poem.
His neighbors are "standing in their backyards /​ holding martinis and garden
hoses." His aunt "took a job as a widow for the money." At a family dinner
you are "trying to find your way /​ out of a bad contract." He reminds us again
and again of how poetry can illuminate our lives with the suddenness of a
flashbulb, and the picture is not always pretty.
-- Richard Shelton

EVERYTHING GREEN EVERYTHING WHITE
A one poem, handmade, accordian-bound book with images by Gene Riggs.
Available directly from the author. $25.00 ppd.

The poem covers the four seasons. The image below shows the Spring and Summer pages.

The house begins to fill

"... a fat poet with slim volumes" (email who said the above quote and win a signed copy of Greatest Hits)