Down With The Ship

Crackling with the sunshine and darkness of an age that's maybe too late for its own good, the poems in this collection tread the line between the sublime and ridiculous. Murphy is one of the bright lights of the younger poetry crowd. Start with the sequence "Poems For Pitchers" and then try out "Weekend in the Century."

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.

Ryan Murphy is the author of THE REDCOATS (Krupskaya, 2010) and DOWN WITH THE SHIP (Otis Books/Seismicity Editions, 2006). He lives and works in New York.

Publisher: Otis Books/Seismicity Editions
Distributor: Otis Books/Seismicity Editions
Publication Date: 01-28-2006
Pages: 66
Measurements: 6oz