Books
You Can’t Have It All
Barbara Ras’s beloved poem and Terrell James’s acclaimed art in an intimate collaboration.
“Wise and enchanting.”
—Naomi Shihab Nye
“Soul-satisfying.”
—Christopher Merrill
The Blues of Heaven
“Ras revels in inversions, startling images, curious facts, provocative settings, and unexpected juxtapositions.”
—Donna Seaman, Booklist
“In the midst of a period in our human history that has been nearly unendurable, Ras has given us a book of extraordinary shining.”
—Rick Barot
“By turns elegiac, nostalgic, and outraged, Ras gives us the world—‘a blue ball spinning at a 1000 mph’—in all its glorious imperfection.”
—Ellen Bass
“It is in this collection—the poems at once tender and world-weary, weathered but endlessly hopeful—that we see Ras at her best.”
―Sewanee Review
The Last Skin
Best book of 2010, Texas Institute of Letters
“Though some later poems are very funny, The Last Skin never strays far from the subject of loss.”
—Benjamin S. Goldberg, Antioch Review
“What makes these poems so captivating is that Ras is both a thinking and a feeling poet.”
—Library Journal
“Painterly and analytical, Ras is enraptured by sky, land, and water as well as by the ambience of the ever-morphing mindscape. . . Exceptional on all counts.”
—Donna Seaman, Booklist
“This is an extremely generous book, voluptuous, I want to call it, with its long lines, easy power of talking rhythms, its unironic embrace of both joy and sorrow.”
—Richard Silberg, Poetry Flash
“Barbara Ras is one of those poets who calls the wolf out of the forest. She is both ferocious and tender, exactly what a poet should be. . . And how could anyone write a poem so amazing as ‘Washing the Elephant.’?”
—Gerald Stern
Hear Maggie Smith read “Washing the Elephant” at The Slowdown.
One Hidden Stuff
“Tough-minded, funny, and sensuous, Ras’s vital poems remind us of all we’re given on this planet and how recklessly we devour it.”
—Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)
“How could nonchalance be so unerringly and even wrenchingly perfect?”
—Michael Snediker, Pleides
“Ras is partly a rhapsodist, partly a mourner. . .a high-spirited and grand collection.”
—Edward Hirsch
“These poems are shot through with surrealism, enlivened by her own nervy vernacular. Turbulent, reverent, far-reaching, fresh.”
—Dorianne Laux
“Ras’s capacious talent is tuned to one essential task: the work of transmuting pain into beauty.”
—Jane Hirshfield
Bite Every Sorrow
Winner of the Walt Whitman Award
Winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award
“What's most immediately striking about her work, and what continues to gratify in it, is its sheer human amplitude: her poems are rich with life-matter, with incisive perceptions and acute experiential insight; they're plotted with a wide-ranging self-consciousness and informed by a metaphysically erudite and whimsical exuberance.”
—C. K. Williams, from his judge’s citation for the Walt Whitman Award
“In lyrics full to the bursting point, Ras accurately captures the tug of war between the quotidian and the miraculous—how the two keep mystifying, inciting, and delighting us by trading places.
—Amy Gerstler
Costa Rica: A Traveler’s Literary Companion
“Splendidly evokes life in the tropics…. This anthology of recent Costa Rican writing introduces us to a host of compelling voices.”
—Outside Magazine
“Magnificient…. The stories are of the highest literary quality.”
—Oscar Arias, former president of Costa Rica and Nobel Peace Prize winner
“If you want to make inroads into the Costa Rican imagination, it is a must-read.”
—The Economist
“Required reading before, during, and after a trip to Costa Rica. This book should be at the top of your list.”
—Rob Rachowiecki
