Dilemmas

“The most striking thing about Dilemmas is the deft manipulation of tone—these poems dance around from polemical to erotic to nostalgic to intimate to stubborn to scientific and back again and then off again to other climes. It is rare to find one voice well-tuned enough to pull this off, but William Ramsey manages beautifully. With a lovely formal touch—meter, rhyme and free-verse abound—Ramsey’s new poems remind us just how many component timbres and modes are often needed to make a single authentic sound.”
—Nathaniel Perry

“The most compelling dilemma one faces in reading William Ramsey’s Dilemmas is whether to linger on one poem, wringing all the pleasure possible from a single piece, or to hurry on in an effort to absorb the cumulative effect of the entire volume. Both approaches are appealing. Most rewarding of all is the prospect of repeating them both, over and over and over again. These poems are the products of a comprehensive intelligence compounded by a transformative imagination, delivered in language that soars. I am honored to recommend them.”
—Don Johnson, Poet in Residence, East Tennessee State University