Womb-Weary: Poems

Pulitzer Prize Winner Henry Taylor once stated that "in James Ragan's poems the language constantly threatens to tumble over the brink beyond control, as powerful emotion drives it toward what has not yet been said. If the language topples, the old snakecharmer calls it back, and together he and the words work real magic. 'Breath,' for one example, is a marvel." It is no surprise, then, that through its extraordinary powers of language, "Womb-Weary" chronicles a soul-searching odyssey through the international landscape of human joy and suffering, a private charting of a terrain both physical and metaphysical. Ragan, more than any other American poet of his generation, has been able to explore his subjects with compassion, intelligence, a democracy of vision, and with a singular voice one trusts. His is poetry of conscience- and poetry to read for coming generations.