Critical Commentary
Chris Ransick's poems in Never Summer: Poems from Thin Air speak tenderly in a quiet conversational voice about romance and family, nature and weather, sickness and death. The language of these poems is simple but layered so that the perception of reality becomes at times almost super-real, with images that reveal an acute observation of nature, "the rough bruises of a storm cloud" or "slats of light falling." In a meadow, the speaker notes that "hip-deep snow/from this distance [becomes] a frayed quilt/ stitched by wapiti tracks." This book is an everyday world where tragedy and bad news occasionally intrude. So does an ironic humor. Through all the ups and downs, there is a thread of confidence in the future, the belief that "We will build a lasting home."
Mary Crow, Colorado Poet Laureate
Following Richard Hugo as much as John Wesley Powell, Chris Ransick is an exacting cartographer of the West's vast landscapes, physical and emotional, rendering them with such care you will agree with him, "This is where / you have always lived, no matter what they say."
Jake Adam York
Chris Ransick writes beautiful, spare prose. His is language infused with the power of direct speech. He sees the perfect—and often heart-breaking—detail in the worlds his characters inhabit. In ordinary lives he views profound humanity and our deeply shared need to matter—to ourselves, to those we care about, to the great mystery of which we’re a part. Creating a spare and often spell-binding lyricism, one reminiscent of Raymond Carver and James Welch, Chris Ransick is a gentle, insightful, and deeply respectful storyteller, and I look forward to entering worlds he creates time and time again.
Russell Martin (Author of Beethoven’s Hair)
I admire the unwavering imaginative persistence of this writer in his . . . fantastic story; pure, unironized narrative is one of the most endangered of poetic species now; this poem stays true to its mystery, with verve and dignity. Bravo.
Tony Hoagland
These are carefully crafted, hard-hitting, real-life poems. Ransick’s unerring sense of place and evocative imagery range boldly and broadly from childhood through fatherhood, from the quietude of the garden to the majesty and endlessness of the Western landscape. The reader will not go away hungry.
Chris Munford (author of Sermons in Stone)
