Jerry Ratch

Information for collectors on the Newsletter page. Click on the Newsletter link above. Signed copies of most books are available from the author directly. Contact jerry@jerryratch.com.
Agent, publisher, collector inquiries are welcome.


Upcoming in 2009, a memoir entitled: A BODY DIVIDED. The story of a one-armed boy growing up in a two-fisted world: in a time of Polio.

"A gritty and valiant story...I would be glad to recommend it."
-- Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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New Novel available for publication:
THE GREAT SAN FRANCISCO POETRY WARS
- "Hilarious! A romp!"
(60,000 words)

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Novel:

WILD DREAMS OF REALITY, 2001 (195 pp)

"The almost, but not quite innocent directness of Ratch's savvy little novel is irresistible to me. I read it in a sitting. I'm glad real writers still want to write books this way."
- Richard Ford, jacket quote.

This novel is available for re-issue. Copies are for sale from the author.
Also available: screenplay for the novel (110 pp)

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Poetry Books:

Puppet X, (Shameless Hussy Press, 1973, 1976)

Clown Birth, (Shameless Hussy Press, 1975)

The Suburban Poem, (Nemesis Press, 1975)

Osiris, (Cloud Marauder Press, 1977)

Chaucer Marginalia, (Sombre Reptiles Press, 1979)

Rose, (Sombre Reptiles Press, 1979)

Hot Weather: Selected Poems, (Scarecrow Press, 1982)

Chairman, (Sombre Reptiles Press, 1982)

Helen, (Cloud Marauder Press, 1984)

Lenin's Paintings, (Illuminati Press, 1987)

Light, (O Books, 1988)

Homeowner Haikus, (Frog, Ltd, 2005),
co-author: Sherry Karver

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The author is available to read from his work, and has done hundreds of readings to date.

Other manuscripts in development. Inquiries invited.
See: Newsletter.

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And a recent poem:


LAUGHTER


“We can walk anywhere and we can stop at some new café where we don’t know anyone and nobody knows us and have a drink.”
-- Hemingway



At the center of the world
our bodies floated over each other,
near to everything, at the center
of being.

Not like arrows pointing in three directions,
but like our own bodies,
pulsing in and out.

Laughter could cure nearly anything,
it was said,
it was so precious.
It was like an undiscovered metal
no one knew anything about
yet.

And when they discovered how rare it was,
O look out!
They came to wage wars over it.
That’s how badly it was needed.

It was widely known
how we could live on laughter
alone.

Not air, not water nor land
was more precious.
Who cared about the apples hanging from trees?
Who cared about the lovely pomegranate?
We came to care little for the perfect orange.

But for a small glassful of laughter
we would kill. Yes, kill.

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copyright (c) 2008 by Jerry Ratch

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And maybe for a bit of levity:


Universal Theory #1:
The 3-step Secret to a Good Life


1. Think up problems that don’t exist.

2. Realize, suddenly, that they don’t exist.

3. Elation.