In the Ohio valley of West Virginia and Ohio life is often defined by death. Tug boats shove coal and chemicals from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati and back again on the Ohio River, the third most polluted river in the U.S. The water is dark and poisonous, a kind of Styx. Here, a thing is known by its opposite. The river reflects cloudiness and blueness, but implies the earth through which it runs. In sunlight, the valley can be one of the most verdant areas of the country. These poems are shades of that light and darkness. They portray life flowing into death, and death ultimately coming to the river.

Although this is his first collection, Ron Houchin's poetry is well known from its publication in dozens of journals worldwide - from Poetry Ireland Review to Poetry Australia. He has read his poetry in the Irish Writers' Centre, the Galway Arts Centre, The Hemingway Days Festival in Key West, Florida, and the James Wright Poetry Festival in Ohio. He has received grants and fellowships from such agencies as the Ohio Arts Council and Eastern Washington University. He has also published two chapbooks, The Courage of Animals (1994) and The Falling Boy (1995) in the US. A regular visitor to Ireland, and participant in the Eastern Washington University Summer Writing Program at the Irish Writers' Centre, he has taught literature and creative writing in public schools and colleges in the US for the past 30 years. He has received a Writers' Digest Award, an Ohio Arts Council Grant and prizes in a number of contests including the 1999 Tessa Fenstermaker Poetry Prize. He was also nominated for Paterson and Pushcart Prizes in 1997. Ron has read his poetry in Ireland on many occasions, most recently at the 2001 Dublin Writers' Festival, when he was described by one reviewer as "one of the discoveries for which an audience can be grateful to a literary festival."

PRAISE FOR RON HOUCHIN

"Even as I begin to write this review, I see the periods in the heading as seeds, an image given me by Ron Houchin in his poem 'Arcturean Tree Poets.' The whole collection is like that -- image after memorable image, metaphor after startling metaphor. This is a book I promise myself to readover and over and over." Barbara Smith, Grab-a-Nickel, vol.xxiv no.1 from Alderson-Broaddus College in Phillippi, West Virginia "His poetry is distinctive, enjoyable, audacious." Ted McNulty, Poetry Ireland Review, Winter 1997

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