Bin Ramke

Bin Ramke Poems

Colligated points, dust, ultimately a cloud, as in
an orographic cloud in Colorado cringing against
a horizon. Boundaried vision and vapor conspire
...

The heron resolves itself from the gray lake the water
conversely the woman dissolves in sex, her own
...

The Pontalba Apartments in the View-Master
and the cardboard cathedral as if trapped in the dream
twenty years early, the whole a furious search
...

I was young once, at least, if not beautiful.
And what is beauty anyway? The light off snow
is pretty. I was young once, as young as any.
After all, she thought, to know the edge
...

Pei designed the building with views,
smooth masonry, and the mountains aligned
for a photo opportunity; inside are files
...

Heraldry and all its lovely language;
I chose my time there learning
elsewhere, where else than land,
...

So much I thought was only personal, like poetry,
like caring nothing for Caillebotte the man,
like arriving in Chicago by bus one gray morning
...

"Who are you to tell us how to live or why,
et cetera?" No Man, of course, and not so tall
as is the current fashion, nor smart enough
...

Sonnet 29
Is there a sound? There is a forest.
What is the world? The word is wilderness.
...

Any morning anyone—the sky and the sound
of birds, the air a river no bird can fly
through twice—an uneasy joke: the air's
...

Lucretius loved Epicurus, knew
the world through him; his
meaning was clear: love as a way
...

A point, a line, alignment. Lovely
the lingering lights along the shore
as the century lays itself out for observation:
...

Bin Ramke Biography

Lloyd Binford Ramke (born 19 February 1947 Port Neches, Texas) is an American poet and editor. He graduated from at Louisiana State University, from University of New Orleans, and from Ohio University with a Ph.D. He taught at Columbus College. He was editor of the University of Georgia Press's Contemporary Poetry Series, from 1984 to 2005. In 2005, he became involved in the Contemporary Poetry Series controversy about Jorie Graham's selection of Peter Sacks. He resigned as editor. He teaches at the University of Denver. He edits the literary magazine Denver Quarterly. He lives in Denver with his wife, Linda, a fiction writer, and their son, Nic.)

The Best Poem Of Bin Ramke

Into Bad Weather Bounding

(After Wallace Stevens' "Of The Surface Of Things")

Colligated points, dust, ultimately a cloud, as in
an orographic cloud in Colorado cringing against
a horizon. Boundaried vision and vapor conspire

to exhale, exalt into rain random dispersal into
the present: I see as far as that. I never saw farther.

In sinking air, mammatus cloud a sign the storm
has passed is passing... I walk happily whenever
or sometimes pass the last bad sign the bounded

land, I am sad as you are doubtless. Sad said
the bad man, somber. Otherwise say:
In my room the world is beyond
my understanding;/ But when I walk I see
that it consists of three or four hills
and a cloud.

Bin Ramke Comments

tvzb menthol 06 April 2024

Professor Ramke is my neighbor. He is a rare and exceedingly decent soul. His study lights are on most nights and give me gentle reassurance about the future of our complex species. Thank you Bin and Linda and Nic.

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Joanne Remppel 31 August 2018

If i am not mistaken you were my teacher at Columbus College in Georgia - made a profound impact on me and I have your poem The Wish to Be In Exile on my bulletin board near my desk...

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