Fealty

by Ricky Ray

In Ricky Ray's debut collection, Fealty, the world quickly reveals itself as more complex and mysterious than we imagined. In poems surreal, feral, visceral, and yet tender, moving, and wise, Ray guides us through themes of love, death, animism, fidelity, belonging, and care. There is something of the ancients in his consciousness, which continually reminds us that we not only inhabit the earth, but are movements of the earth itself. Ray's connection to creatures great and small feels elemental; dog and dandelion stand beside man and mountain in the light. His eco-poetics, reminiscent of Wendell Berry and Joy Harjo, displays the dark passion of duende and the rhythmic swing of jazz manouche. All told, Ricky Ray is a modern-day mystic, and Fealty is a series of startling visions capable of inducing a more intimate kinship with the world.

Genres: Poetry

146 pages, Hardcover

Published June 8, 2018

Reviews

[Isabelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ricky Ray’s collection ‘Fealty’ feels like a life achievement. So much is covered and explored – life, philosophy, politics and dreams.

Ricky imagines in a poem ‘A Place’, what a world without waste, and selfishness, would look like. I enjoy the quiet political undertones of this collection and this poem specifically, in which Ricky imagines what could happen if we deconstructed society: ‘a place where economy/ is what one does with what one has’.

This dream is mundane next to dreams in which he compares thirst for liquor to hunger for blood, identifying similarities between his own qualities and that of a panther, and a wild boar. The imagery in this collection, verges on fairy tale, in its exploration of the weird and wonderful, and this has the ability to transport the reader. For example, ‘Thanksgiving with Vegetarians’ begins, ‘In a field, somewhere out west, where an eagle feather refuses to land’, feels reminiscent of oral fairy-tale traditional beginnings ‘Once upon a time, in a land far away…’

I found myself laughing at lines such as ‘We live longer and call it progress’ and ‘He said it was time to stop writing poems and start living them’. This is a clever collection which has something to delight all readers and lovers of poetry. Ricky Ray is clearly a poet to watch!

[Veronica Van Bruggen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am amazed at the versatility and uncanny fantasy of Ricky Ray's poetry in this beautiful book Fealty.
Now that I have finished reading all the poems, I am left with a feeling of witnessing excellency.
Fantastic use of words, of inner rhymes, of metaphors all leading to sometimes bizarre and unusual ways of seeing life and what happens in it.
Recommending Fealty to anyone who likes poetry at its best. A must read.

[Peggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exquisite, quiet, deep poems full of love and appreciation even when describing when "the day drowned in you." Ray goes deeply into images and comes back with poems that express profound, mythic, universal realities. These are poems to read at evening and dream about at night. Highly recommended.