Poetry is as relevant now as ever, whether you are a regular reader of it or not. People reach out to poetry and look to poems as a clear expression of emotion at moments that are overwhelming and burdensome; to communicate of personal experiences; or grapple broad questions where answers are sought. And some poetry is about how one feels about virtually anything, it can be about people, places or things.
Ray DiZazzo, the author of THE REVLON SLOUGH (2018), has been a corporate media producer for over thirty years, but he has also been an author of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. His work has appeared in numerous publications, notably, Westways, The Berkeley Poetry Review, Beyond Baroque, East River Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Invisible City, California Quarterly and others. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the recipient of the Percival Roberts Book Award, and the Rhysling Award and his work was anthologized in their annual publication, The Alchemy of Stars: Burning with a Vision and Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ray has done what most poets do, hold down a full time job while honing his craft as a poet.
This is certainly reflected in this video on his book, where he talks about the craft of poetry, what it means to him, and the impetus behind the creation of THE REVLON SLOUGH. As the poet, Claire Millikin stated in the introduction of the book:
The poems of The Revlon Slough speak and are a lifetime. New and selected, as the subtitle says, they span decades (his first book appeared in 1976), and while their tone and topics are as various and conflicted as the American experience itself — the timeframe of his poems reaches from Nixon to Trump — the poems riff off the power of language to transform and transcend a markedly imperfect world. They use language as a way to gather the fallen pieces.
So If you enjoy poetry, Ray’s story and the reading of his poems should resonate. And if you are interested in going deeper, I encourage you to order is book, right here from our website. Ray is available for readings, seminars and workshops, and if you are interested, please let me know.
Happy reading!
