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The Soul We Share
Winner of the 2023 Aryamati Collection Competition.
Through visceral and vulnerable poetry, Ricky Ray meditates on the pain and gratitude that arise from a keenly felt awareness of our fleeting existence. Recognizing his humanity as a facet of natural processes, Ricky measures the ache of living in a disabled body against the joy of 'being lived' by the places he inhabits. As we accompany him and his soul dog, Addie, through the scenic woodlands of New England, the concrete jungle of Manhattan, and the swamps of the Deep South, the lines between humans, animals and nature begin to blur and move in concert. Shifting between forms both physical and elemental, we read of an existence lived not 'upon / but as one' with the Earth, 'whose being we are throughout and beyond our brief sojourn as human'. At the heart of this collection is the transformative experience of Ricky's life with an old brown dog, which teaches that soul isn't merely something we possess—it's an animacy deeply shared.
Through visceral and vulnerable poetry, Ricky Ray meditates on the pain and gratitude that arise from a keenly felt awareness of our fleeting existence. Recognizing his humanity as a facet of natural processes, Ricky measures the ache of living in a disabled body against the joy of 'being lived' by the places he inhabits. As we accompany him and his soul dog, Addie, through the scenic woodlands of New England, the concrete jungle of Manhattan, and the swamps of the Deep South, the lines between humans, animals and nature begin to blur and move in concert. Shifting between forms both physical and elemental, we read of an existence lived not 'upon / but as one' with the Earth, 'whose being we are throughout and beyond our brief sojourn as human'. At the heart of this collection is the transformative experience of Ricky's life with an old brown dog, which teaches that soul isn't merely something we possess—it's an animacy deeply shared.
171 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 26, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 30, 2024
New England poet Ricky Ray describes himself as an “eco-mystic” and is the author of several previous works. Maura Dooley chose this as the Aryamati Collection Prize winner in 2023. As in Birds Knit My Ribs Together by Phil Barnett, nature is a source of comfort in a life complicated by chronic illness. In “Pain: 8 on a Scale out of 10,” Ray explains how “Some days, I never make it out of my head, / that coal-eyed melon … The impinged nerves crack their whips / within my animal pelt”. An accidental overdose and depression are matter-of-fact components of the poet’s history. While uxorious, he regrets that he may never become a father. And yet this couplet expresses deep pleasure in life:
His elderly rescue dog Addie is his beloved companion, and the delight she takes in physical existence despite advancing cancer is a model to him: “she still has a lot / to teach me about aging, about ignoring it, about how to throw my body— / even when it fails me, even when it hurts like hell—headlong into joy.” Multiple poems remember particular walks with her, such as in a Connecticut forest. He even gets a tutorial from her in how to dig a hole. Later on, he remarks as if to her, “Forgive me, I’m human, / we’re slow to learn, quick to forget— / it could be said we live too long / to appreciate each drop of time in the heart’s well.”
If his primary engagement with the nonhuman world is via a pet, Ray also widens the scope to include environmental plight: “you look up and extinction’s / already guzzling half the bestiary, / You think, / God, what have I done? / And the God in you answers: / harm, now what will you do?” This sense of responsibility meeting resolution echoes throughout the book. Ache is a spur to seek remedies; “I learned that hurt inducts all painfolk as conspirators // in the craft of healing.” The prose poems were a bit long and ranty for me (e.g., “Identity Earth: A Brief Biography of Our Planetary Self” goes on for more than six pages) and overall I found the book a little sentimental and New Age-adjacent. However, the poems about Addie are undeniably touching, and perfect for fans of Mary Oliver’s Dog Songs.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
(Dis)ability
Some days, my body is so beautiful
I can’t believe I get to live here.
His elderly rescue dog Addie is his beloved companion, and the delight she takes in physical existence despite advancing cancer is a model to him: “she still has a lot / to teach me about aging, about ignoring it, about how to throw my body— / even when it fails me, even when it hurts like hell—headlong into joy.” Multiple poems remember particular walks with her, such as in a Connecticut forest. He even gets a tutorial from her in how to dig a hole. Later on, he remarks as if to her, “Forgive me, I’m human, / we’re slow to learn, quick to forget— / it could be said we live too long / to appreciate each drop of time in the heart’s well.”
If his primary engagement with the nonhuman world is via a pet, Ray also widens the scope to include environmental plight: “you look up and extinction’s / already guzzling half the bestiary, / You think, / God, what have I done? / And the God in you answers: / harm, now what will you do?” This sense of responsibility meeting resolution echoes throughout the book. Ache is a spur to seek remedies; “I learned that hurt inducts all painfolk as conspirators // in the craft of healing.” The prose poems were a bit long and ranty for me (e.g., “Identity Earth: A Brief Biography of Our Planetary Self” goes on for more than six pages) and overall I found the book a little sentimental and New Age-adjacent. However, the poems about Addie are undeniably touching, and perfect for fans of Mary Oliver’s Dog Songs.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
September 23, 2024
The Soul We Share, a new collection by American poet, essayist, and self-described mystic Ricky Ray, takes as its impetus his shared life with his beloved dog Addie, who taught him patience, tolerance, and close observation of the environment, but it is so much more than a book for those who have also shared their lives with a beloved animal. This book is nothing less than a poetic manifesto challenging us to do better, notice better, live better, and love better, for the sake of our mother Earth who sustains us. Ray is a living poet, not only in the usual sense, but also in the sense that he lets the reader know that it’s possible to be living poetry all the time. Even the endnotes to this book are poetry themselves and, in effect, become extensions of the poems themselves.
The book takes the form of a musical work, with five movements cradled by a prelude and a coda, and a prose interlude halfway through. The Interlude, titled Identity Earth: A Brief Biography of Our Planetary Self, is a lyric lecture, a holistic examination of life. There is no Big Bang here, but music: “a single stroke commencing the grand symphony we call existence” (p. 67). Musical references appear throughout the book, such as this from the poem Resolution: “Body, I hear you singing to yourself” (p. 28). There are other recurring motives: Aches (brief haiku-like verses) and a set of Walk with Addie poems. The walk poems begin the first two and last two movements and create an arch-like structure to lead us through the collection.
One of the first movement’s themes is how we enter into the mind of Earth (or of a dog) without speaking, as well as into the mind of the one who lives with physical pain. The imagery of pain is sharp, as in the last poem of Aches, Quartet #1: “I want a poem so close to hurt / it bruises my lips on the way out” (p. 22). Another theme is how everything around us, even inanimate stone, whispers of past lives, so that all becomes one. A life as a poem. But there are also subtle warnings about the consequences of our actions against our earthly home and ourselves. Light as a theme often appears out of these shadows to lead us on from section to section.
This book asks questions of the reader: How do we figure out what “do better” is? How do we heal the Earth? How do we notice our “eco-vision” and see what’s going on around us? How do we get others to notice? How do we effect “a troubling of consciousness that / … someone needs” (VII, p. 83)? Perhaps we do and can by means of this kind of poetry, which manages to be both delicate and forceful in its language and intentions.
There are many references in this collection to autumn, Ray’s favorite season, so this season would be a nice time to buy this beautifully produced book from Fly on the Wall Press (UK) for yourself or for a friend.
The book takes the form of a musical work, with five movements cradled by a prelude and a coda, and a prose interlude halfway through. The Interlude, titled Identity Earth: A Brief Biography of Our Planetary Self, is a lyric lecture, a holistic examination of life. There is no Big Bang here, but music: “a single stroke commencing the grand symphony we call existence” (p. 67). Musical references appear throughout the book, such as this from the poem Resolution: “Body, I hear you singing to yourself” (p. 28). There are other recurring motives: Aches (brief haiku-like verses) and a set of Walk with Addie poems. The walk poems begin the first two and last two movements and create an arch-like structure to lead us through the collection.
One of the first movement’s themes is how we enter into the mind of Earth (or of a dog) without speaking, as well as into the mind of the one who lives with physical pain. The imagery of pain is sharp, as in the last poem of Aches, Quartet #1: “I want a poem so close to hurt / it bruises my lips on the way out” (p. 22). Another theme is how everything around us, even inanimate stone, whispers of past lives, so that all becomes one. A life as a poem. But there are also subtle warnings about the consequences of our actions against our earthly home and ourselves. Light as a theme often appears out of these shadows to lead us on from section to section.
This book asks questions of the reader: How do we figure out what “do better” is? How do we heal the Earth? How do we notice our “eco-vision” and see what’s going on around us? How do we get others to notice? How do we effect “a troubling of consciousness that / … someone needs” (VII, p. 83)? Perhaps we do and can by means of this kind of poetry, which manages to be both delicate and forceful in its language and intentions.
There are many references in this collection to autumn, Ray’s favorite season, so this season would be a nice time to buy this beautifully produced book from Fly on the Wall Press (UK) for yourself or for a friend.
January 26, 2025
Poetry featuring a four legged soul. Moved me and made me think about and see things differently. Melancholy.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews