Bin Ramke

Bin Ramke pushes musicality (alliteration, internal rhyme, sliding of word to similar sounding word) to a point I almost find unbearable. Words as particles, flickering into existence for an instant and then poof!, disintegrating to energy only, then re-emerging as a different word: word sparks word here; combustion; alchemy of element to element, yet carrying the trace of each prior (or simultaneous) word with it, into it: “tension, tender, tendril, attend:” (106) Somehow, Ramke manages to hold me delightfully and instructively on the brink. At the same time, he gets a lot said: this is erudite poetry, infused with reading, with source material. For all his focus on musicality, Ramke does not abandon ideas. These are not just tone poems. Rather, deliciousness of language is fused with thought and story. There is much here about boyhood in a particular world, or if nor boyhood, then a particular boy. A boy who has a sister, always a double. And a madhouse established in 1796 that had the following rule: “When a patient could properly behave at tea, he was released.” A question comes to my mind from Richard Power’s novel The Goldbug Variations: “How many places are there?” However many there are, Ramke's poetry proves that there are more than we can count. Niches are, for all practical purposes, infinite.… (more)