Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
SideWORK TITLE: The Fathers We Find
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 3/16/1952
WEBSITE:
CITY: Milwaukee
STATE: WI
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://www.bookthatpoet.com/poets/rieschar.html * http://www.marquette.edu/library/archives/Mss/CPR/CPR-main.shtml * https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-p-ries-8a70b526 * http://www.sheboyganpress.com/story/entertainment/2016/01/20/sheboygan-native-charles-p-ries-pens-new-book/79062430/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born March 16, 1952, in Sheboygan, WI; son of Leo (a mink farmer) and Ann Ries; children: Catherine, Isabel.
EDUCATION:University of Wisconsin, Madison, B.A.Sc. (with honors), 1976.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and education administrator. Oram Group, San Francisco, CA, senior vice president, 1983-95; John Wayne Cancer Institute, Santa Monica, CA, vice president for development, 1995-98; Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, senior director of development design and innovation, 1998–; Commons, WI, cofounder, 2014–. Worked on a program on religion and psychotherapy with the Dalai Lama, 1989.
AVOCATIONS:Surfing.
MEMBER:Member of boards of Startup Milwaukee, the Woodland Pattern Book Center, and the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. Founding member of Lakeshore Surf Club; founder of CEO Round Table.
AWARDS:Jade Ring Award, Wisconsin Regional Writers Association; Outstanding Achievement award, Wisconsin Library Association Awards Committee and poetry award winner, Paris Book Festival, 2016, both for Girl Friend & Other Mysteries of Love.
WRITINGS
Contributor of poems, interviews, reviews, and short stories to publications. Former poetry editor for ESC!, Pass Port Journal, and Word Riot.
SIDELIGHTS
Charles P. Ries is a Wisconsin-born writer and education administrator. He is the senior director of development design and innovation at Marquette University, a position he has held since 1998. Previously, Ries has served as the senior vice president of Oram Group and the vice president for development at the John Wayne Cancer Institute. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Ries has also studied yoga, reiki, and Sufism. He is a member of the boards of organizations, including Startup Milwaukee, the Woodland Pattern Book Center, and the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. Ries has served as a poetry editor for ESC!, Pass Port Journal, and Word Riot. He has written poems, short stories, reviews, and interviews that have appeared in various publications and online.
The Last Time and I'd Rather Be Mexican
Ries focuses on Mexico in The Last Time, a book of poems in which he praises the country’s beauty and rich culture. Several poems in the collection explore aspects of romantic love. In one, Ries expresses longing for a lover; another is an ode to a red-headed friend for whom Ries harbored romantic feelings. Reviewing The Last Time on the Zygote in My Coffee Web site, Lou Roach commented: “Charles Ries has again put together a collection of poems that reflect his ability to examine his surroundings and himself with a skeptic’s eye and a romanticist’s ideals. When he combines the two, he offers readers a rich assortment of perspectives of the human condition–both actual and imagined. He has succeeded in doing that in The Last Time.” Roach added: “With his heart steeped in the beauty, emotionality and the culture of Mexico, but with his feet planted in Wisconsin, Ries demonstrates his progress as a poet and participant in our current society.”
Ries returns to Mexico as a unifying theme in I’d Rather Be Mexican, a book of poems published in 2010. “Just Stories,” the first work in the collection, features a narrator observing the people he sees while on a trip to Mexico. The same narrator also appears in other poems, such as “Mexicans Love a King,” in which the narrator witnesses a religious procession. Other poems discuss the Mexican writer Octavio Paz, Latin romance, and feelings of home. In a review at Verse Wisconsin Online, Alice D’Alessio observed: “These are not carefully crafted or edited poems. The line breaks tend to be erratic, and copy could have used some editing. But the poems enchant with rich language, evoking a place and a longing that is as familiar as travel posters, but as exotic and full of the senses as our dreams. The lines flow, ramble and leap, as thought, dream and memories collide.” D’Alessio added: “Ries takes us along with him to his early enchantment with his Shangri-La, and we enjoy the journey. It does raise the question: once enchanted, can the poet ever come back … ?”
Girl Friend & Other Mysteries of Love and The Fathers We Find
In Girl Friend & Other Mysteries of Love, Ries presents a selection of romantic poems. The narrator of the poems is a middle-aged man who still has much to learn about love. A writer on the Alternating Current Mailing List Web site stated: “Charles P. Ries is guide, guru, therapist, participant, and equal-opportunity opportunist, as well as the blind leading the lost. Yet, through it all, his true north remains love.”
Ries shifts to the genre of memoir in, The Fathers We Find: The Making of a Pleasant, Humble Boy, a book that was self-published in 2007 and then released by Bad Monk Productions in 2015. In this volume, Ries reflects on growing up on a mink farm in rural Wisconsin: he recalls details about the process of killing and pelting minks, and he invokes the persona of his quiet, unemotional father, who always held fast to his Catholic beliefs. Ries notes that although as a boy he did not connect with his own father, he found other men to look up to. In an interview with Allison Thompson at the Sheboygan Press, Ries stated: “We don’t get to pick our fathers, but sometimes we are lucky enough to get our fathers to find us.” Regarding the lessons he offers in the book, Ried told Thompson: “Keep your eyes open … there are people who are there for you and this is particularly true when we are young, in grade school and high school. … We can sometimes moan about the parents we have, the things they lack. No one is perfect, and neither am I.”
A reviewer in Publishers Weekly commented: “Ries combines his gift for language with an insight into the relationships at the core of the book.” Pablo Teasedale, writing at the Mad Hatter’s Review Web site, described The Fathers We Find as “an age-old story” that “is told with such clarity that it is one of the best tellings.” Teasedale then concluded: “This is a … difficult love story with many layers. Read it, then give it to a friend. Learn about mink and blackberry brandy … and love.”
BIOCRIT
ONLINE
Alternating Current Mailing List, http://alternating-current-weekly.blogspot.com/ (February 5, 2013), review of Girl Friend & Other Mysteries of Love.
Book That Poet, http://www.bookthatpoet.com/ (February 22, 2017), author biography.
Mad Hatter’s Review, http://www.madhattersreview.com/ (July 7, 20o7), Pablo Teasedale, review of The Fathers We Find.
Mad Poetry, http://www.madpoetry.org/ (February 22, 2017), Lou Roach, review of The Last Time.
Marquette University Web site, http://www.marquette.edu/ (February 22, 2017), author faculty profile.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Online, http://archive.jsonline.com/ (March 8, 2013), Jim Higgins, review of Girl Friend & Other Mysteries of Love.
Publishers Weekly Online, http://www.publishersweekly.com/ (February 22, 2017), review of The Fathers We Find.
Sheboygan Press Online, http://www.sheboyganpress.com/ (January 20, 2016), Allison Thompson, author interview.
Smashwords Web site, https://www.smashwords.com/ (February 22, 2017), author profile.
Verse Wisconsin Online, http://www.versewisconsin.org/ (June 22, 2010), Alice D’Alessio, review of I’d Rather Be Mexican.
Zygote in My Coffee, http://www.zygoteinmycoffee.com/ (September, 2005), Lou Roach, review of The Last Time.
QUOTED: "We don’t get to pick our fathers, but sometimes we are lucky enough to get our fathers to find us."
"Keep your eyes open ... there are people who are there for you and this is particularly true when we are young, in grade school and high school. ... We can sometimes moan about the parents we have, the things they lack. No one is perfect, and neither am I."
Sheboygan native Charles P. Ries pens new book
Allison Thompson, For USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin 1:14 p.m. CT Jan. 20, 2016
635888906862640860-CharlesPRies-7-1-.jpg
(Photo: Courtesy of Boswell Book Company)
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Ditties of Sheboygan County history are mixed with dramatizations and characterizations in a new book titled, “Fathers We Find.”
Written by Sheboygan native Charles P. Ries, “Fathers We Find” is said to bring tears of joy and sorrow to its readers. Ries will host a book reading and signing 1-3 p.m., Jan. 23, at Z Spot, 1024 Indiana Ave., Sheboygan. The book is $15.
“Charles’ book is quite entertaining,” said Z Spot owner Jeff Zenk, who has already received positive comments about “Fathers We Find.”
Growing up on a mink farm on Sheboygan’s south side as one seven children gave Ries much fodder for the book. “Five of the seven went to the convent or seminary,” he said. “I like to say I grew up in the most Catholic family in America.”
“Fathers We Find” is a coming-of-age story that takes place in Sheboygan between 1950 and 1971. The narrator, “Chuck,” is influenced by many who cross his path while growing up.
“We don’t get to pick our fathers, but sometimes we are lucky enough to get our fathers to find us,” he said.
Ries classifies “Fathers We Find” as a fictional memoir. Surrounded by nuns, priests and hard-working church-goers, Chuck stumbles his way to enlightenment with help from a series of men in a hilarious, poignant and nostalgic journey.
The book itself took nearly 10 years to get to where it is today, said Ries. It first began as a short story and evolved over the years with rewrites and edits.
The Sheboygan South graduate didn’t always write books. Upon graduating from UW-Madison, Ries spent time in London and North Africa, where he studied mysticism. In 1989, he worked with the Dalai Lama on a program that brought American religious leaders and psychotherapists together for a weeklong dialogue. It was during this same week that the Dalai Lama was awarded his Nobel Peace Prize. Currently, Ries lives in Milwaukee and works at Marquette University.
It was when he began writing poems for his girlfriend, around the age of 45, that the joy of writing seemed to first attract his attention. “She said it was pretty good,” he said.
After poetry, Ries decided to give short story writing a try. A writer friend warned him that it was much different than poetry — there are more components like tension, plots, speed, action, development of characters and structuring. She was right, and it can be exhausting, Ries said. But he was up for the challenge and remained persistent, submitting his works to well more than 5,000 outlets.
Now 63, Ries’ narrative poems, short stories, interviews and poetry reviews have appeared in more than 200 print and electronic publications. He has received five Pushcart Prize nominations for his writing. He was awarded the Wisconsin Regional Writers Association “Jade Ring” Award for humorous poetry and awarded Outstanding Achievement recognition by the Wisconsin Library Association Awards Committee for his full collection of poetry, “Girl.”
“I love the competitive side of (writing), of trying to create something that is acceptable, it became cathartic,” Ries said.
“Fathers We Find” was queried to about 500 agents and was published by an on-demand publisher last October after another set of line edits and restructuring. Ries said. “I’m very compulsive and organized. I believe that your art doesn’t die until you die,” he noted.
The end result of “Fathers We Find” is a book that Ries is proud of. “It’s is selling pretty good on Amazon and Jeff has it at the Z Spot,” Ries said.
A core message of the book, said Ries, is to pay attention to the people in your life.
“Keep your eyes open ... there are people who are there for you and this is particularly true when we are young, in grade school and high school," he said. "We can sometimes moan about the parents we have, the things they lack. No one is perfect, and neither am I.” If you keep your eyes open, there are people who can alter the direction of your life, he added.
In his spare time, Ries enjoys mentoring youth and sharing his passion of reading with others. To those who say “I could never write,” he encourages them to take it in short stints, at just 15 to 30 minutes a day. You may be surprised.
In addition to the reading and signing at Z Spot, Ries will also appear at 7 p.m., Jan. 29, at Boswell Books, 2559 N. Downer Ave., Milwaukee.
Allison Thompson can be reached at allithompson@sbcglobal.net.
If you go:
What: Book reading and signing of “Fathers We Find” by author Charles P. Ries
When: 1-3 p.m., Jan. 23
Where: Z Spot, 1024 Indiana Ave., Sheboygan
Cost: Admission is free, books are $15
Charles P. Ries
Marquette University / The Commons / Startup Milwaukee
Greater Milwaukee AreaHigher Education
Current
The Commons - Wisconsin, Startup Milwaukee, Marquette University
Previous
John Wayne Cancer Institute, The Oram Group
Education
University of Wisconsin-Madison
500+
connectionsSend Charles P. InMailMore options
https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-p-ries-8a70b526
Contact Info
Background
Summary
Charles P. Ries is Senior Director of Development Design and Innovation at Marquette University. He joined Marquette’s Advancement staff in 1998. Prior to joining Marquette he was Vice President for Development at the John Wayne Cancer Institute in Santa Monica, CA and Senior Vice President of the Oram Group - a fund raising management and consulting firm founded in 1940. During his thirteen years with The Oram Group he worked with over 200 non-profit organizations solving a variety of fundraising and organizational challenges. He is an honors graduate of the University of Wisconsin.
He is also a published author. His narrative poems, short stories, interviews, and poetry reviews have appeared in over two hundred print and electronic publications. He has received five Pushcart Prize nominations for his writing. He is the author of six books of poetry and a novel based on memory. He was awarded the Wisconsin Regional Writers Association “Jade Ring” Award for humorous poetry. He is the former poetry editor for Word Riot (www.wordriot.org) and board member at the Woodland Pattern Book Center as well as the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. His book of poetry published by Alternating Currents Press in 2013 entitled, Girl Friend & Other Mysteries of Love. was selected for Outstanding Achievement by the Literary Awards Committee of the Wisconsin Library Association. You may find his blog radio interview Jane Crown by going to: www.janecrown.com and clicking on archived shows at the bottom of the page.
His novel based on memory was recently published on Amazon/Kindle and it can be accessed by going to: http://www.amazon.com/THE-FATHERS-WE-FIND-ebook/dp/B00854K2M4
You may find the Charles P. Ries Collection which is archieved at the Marquette University Raynor Library by going to: http://www.marquette.edu/library/archives/Mss/CPR/CPR-main.shtml
Experience
Co-founder
The Commons - Wisconsin
April 2014 – Present (2 years 11 months)Greater Milwaukee Area
I co-founded entrepreneurial skills accelerator program teaching students in Southeast Wisconsin corporate innovation and entrepreneurship. To learn more visit: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-commons---wisconsin
Advisory Board Member
Startup Milwaukee
October 2013 – Present (3 years 5 months)Milwaukee
I am happy to support the good work of Matt Cordio (Founder) and the many entrepreneurs in Milwaukee and Wisconsin accelerate their dreams into high functioning businesses.
Startup Milwaukee
Startup Milwaukee
Senior Director Development Design and Innovation
Marquette University
1998 – Present (19 years)
I raise money in support of Marquette University and its many programs. In this regard, I work to create value based programing that benfits both the donor and the University. I designed Marquette's award winning CIRCLES program (http://www.marquette.edu/alumni/networking-circles.php) and more recently the Marquette CEO Round Table program. My work is extensively focused on entrepreneurs and business owners who wish elevate their corporate cultures to be more innovative. In turn, I work to bring these varied cultures to Marquette. I helped to design Marquette's first student start-up called, Buena Vida Coffee (https://www.google.com/search?q=buena+vida+coffee). I believe that by increasing Marquette's relevance and value to the business community, we will transform business as we know it, and grow the next generation of business leaders who not only understand they concept of "servant leadership", but are deeply rooted in the fundamentals of business and how money is made, jobs are created, and the greater good is accomplished.
(Open)4 projects
Poet, Novelist, Essays, Interviews, and Articles
WRITER
1998 – Present (19 years)Milwaukee, Wisconsin
My narrative poems, short stories, interviews, and poetry reviews have appeared in over two hundred print and electronic publications. I have received five Pushcart Prize nominations. I was awarded the Wisconsin Regional Writers Association “Jade Ring” Award for humorous poetry. I am the former poetry editor for Word Riot, ESC!, and Pass Port Journal. I am a former board member of the Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee, and served on the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. I am currently a board member of the John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin
I'D RATHER BE MEXICAN
I'D RATHER BE MEXICAN
Vice President for Advancement
John Wayne Cancer Institute
March 1995 – May 1998 (3 years 3 months)
Senior Vice President
The Oram Group
November 1983 – February 1995 (11 years 4 months)
Publications
The Fathers We Find(Link)
http://www.amazon.com/THE-FATHERS-WE-FIND-ebook/dp/B00854K2M4
May 24, 2012
Set amidst the farm fields and rolling hills of Southeastern Wisconsin, THE FATHERS WE FIND is a coming-of-age story that takes place between 1950 and 1971. This novel based on memory closely parallels the experiences of its author who grew up on a mink farm just outside of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Drowning in a sea of nuns, priests, and hard-working church-goers, "Chuck," our narrator, stumbles his...more
Girl Friend & Other Mysteries of Love(Link)
Propaganda Press, Leah Angstman - Publisher
Girl Friend & Other Mysteries of Love is a meditation on the ebb and flow of love in these changing times. The screw-ups, suck-ups, epiphanies, black holes, celestial awakenings, and confusions of the thing considered mystical to some, and impossible to others. Told from the perspective of a middle-aged lover-in-training, these poems have all the joy and all the pain and all the wonder, but...more
Projects
CIRCLES(Link)
Starting July 2003
It wasn’t always called CIRCLES. We used to call it affinity based networking. The early concept of CIRCLES was created by field fund raisers trying to solve the sorts of problems we all face in the field. We needed a “vehicle” to engage our high potential prospects and qualify more of them. There were too many of THEM and too few of US. We needed to address the challenges of:
• Managing...more
2 team members
Charles P. Ries
Charles P. Ries
Marquette University / The Commons / Startup Milwaukee
No photo
Stacy Mitz has taken this idea and turned it into an industry. It is immenesly rewarding to see an idea GROW .
BUENA VIDA COFFEE(Link)
Starting August 2009
We are creating the first Marquette Student Business Start Up. It has been challenging and rewarding like any start-up. After two years of hard work we feel we have a go-to-market strategy that will work and grow. Please check out our web site and order some wonderful coffee. By doing this YOU will be fostering the next generation of entrepreneurs.
All net profits from coffee fundraising sales...more
2 team members
Charles P. Ries
Charles P. Ries
Marquette University / The Commons / Startup Milwaukee
No photo
Many people helped make this happen: Toby Peters, Kate Novotny, Tim Keane, Eric Resch and many more.
THE CHARLES P. RIES COLLECTION(Link)
Starting October 1998
I began writing relatively late in life. I turned forty-five and writing grabbed a hold of me and wouldn’t let go. I immersed myself within the independent small press. Beginning with poetry, I soon moved to other forms, including short stories, poetry reviews, interviews, articles, and essays. During this time I completed two novels. Some in the small press called me ubiquitous as from 1998 to...more
MARQUETTE CEO ROUND TABLE
July 2010
I created CEO Round Table as a line extension for our very successful CIRCLES programing. This program is focused on business owners and giving them the opportunity to network at visit site specific locations of other businesses and business owners. This program won a CASE Bronze Award in 2014.
The CEO Roundtable concept began in Wisconsin’s Fox Valley region. For the past twelve years...more
3 team members
Charles P. Ries
Charles P. Ries
Marquette University / The Commons / Startup Milwaukee
Stacy Mitz
Stacy Mitz
Asst. Vice President, Engagement
Marlee R.
Marlee R.
Director, Alumni Engagement, University Advancement at Marquette University
LAKESHORE SURF CLUB
January 1968
I am a founding member of the oldest fresh water club on the Great Lakes that was created in 1968 in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
Skills
Top Skills
99+Fundraising
79Nonprofits
54Leadership
45Entrepreneurship
27Blogging
24Non-profits
18Event Planning
17Editing
17Community Outreach
13Social Networking
Charles P. also knows about...
13Social Media
12Stewardship
9Social Entrepreneurship
8Volunteer Management
8Philanthropy
7Higher Education
7Grant Writing
6Executive Coaching
5Innovation
5Public Relations
4Creative Nonfiction...
4Books
4Start-ups
4Media Relations
4Program Development
See 14+
Education
University of Wisconsin-Madison
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Bachelor of Applied Science (BASc), Communication and Media Studies
1971 – 1976
Additional Info
Personal Details
Birthday March 16
CHARLES P. RIES COLLECTION
Biographical Note:
Charles P. Ries was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin in 1952, the son of Leo and Ann Ries. He attended South High School and received his degree from the University Wisconsin – Madison. His narrative poems, short stories, interviews, and poetry reviews have appeared in over two hundred print and electronic publications. He has received five Pushcart Prize nominations for his writing. He was awarded the Wisconsin Regional Writers Association “Jade Ring” Award for humorous poetry. He is the former poetry editor for Word Riot, ESC!, and Pass Port Journal. He is also a former board member of the Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee, and served on the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission.
Ries began writing relatively late in life. As he would say, “I turned forty-five and writing grabbed a hold of me and wouldn’t let go.” He quickly established himself as a major voice within the independent small press. Beginning with poetry, he soon moved to other forms, including short stories, poetry reviews, interviews, articles, and essays. During this time he also completed two novels. Some in the small press called him ubiquitous as from 1998 to 2008 his work seemed to appear everywhere. In 2009 he all but stopped writing saying, “I wrote myself out. I am waiting for more to come.”
Ries often refers to his work as “a mash-up of the secular and the spiritual, the ordinary and the mystical.” He readily admits his early life experiences had a strong influence on his creative writing and what he hoped to accomplish through it. Ries grew up in a very devout Catholic family. Of his six siblings, five entered the convent or seminary. It was this early and deep immersion into Catholicism that would later fuel his own search for God. After college he lived in London and North Africa where he studied the mystical teachings of Islam called Sufism. In 1989 he worked with the Dalai Lama on a program that brought American religious leaders and psychotherapists together for a weeklong dialogue. It was during this same week that the Dalai Lama was awarded his Nobel Peace Prize. Ries has done extensive work with men’s groups and worked with a Jungian psychotherapist for over five years during which time he recorded five hundred dreams and learned to find the meanings in small things. He is a third degree Reiki healer, and has received advanced yoga training.
Ries currently works at Marquette University and is Senior Director of Development Design and Innovation in University Advancement. He has two daughters, Catherine and Isabel.
Charles P. Ries
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
BIO: Charles P. Ries lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His narrative poems, short stories, interviews, and poetry reviews have appeared in over two hundred print and electronic publications. He has received four Pushcart Prize nominations for his writing. He is the author of The Fathers We Find, a novel based on memory, and six books of poetry. Most recently he was awarded the Wisconsin Regional Writers Association “Jade Ring” Award for humorous poetry. He is the former poetry editor for Word Riot and a former member of the board at the Woodland Pattern Book Center. Charles is Co-Chairman of the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. He will have a new book of poetry published in 2011: Girl Friend & Other Mysteries of Love, that will be published by Alternating Current Press, Leah Angstman, Editor. He is a founding member of the Lake Shore Surf Club, the oldest fresh water surfing club on the Great Lakes. Most recently he was interviewed by Jane Crown for Blog Radio (go to janecrown.com and click on Archived Shows at the bottom of the page. You may find additional samples of his work at literati.net/Ries/.
PUBLICATIONS:
I'd Rather Be Mexican, 2005; free download: literati.net/Ries/charles-ries-books.htm
The Last Time, Moon Printing and Publications 2005 - $3.00
Odd, Four-Step Publications, (second printing) 2004 - $6.00
The Fathers We Find: The Making of a Pleasant Humble Boy, (Prose) Bad Monk Press 2004 - $13.00
Monje Malo Speaks English, Four-Step Publications, (third printing) 2003 - $6.00
Bad Monk: Neither Here Nor There, Lockout Press/Four-Step Publications, 2001 - $6.00
Charles P Ries
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Charles P Ries
Charles P Ries poet.jpg
Born Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, United States
Nationality American
Subject Narrative poems, short stories, interviews, and poetry reviews
Notable awards
Wisconsin Regional Writers Association Jade Ring Award (2009)
Outstanding Achievement Award by Wisconsin Library Association (2013)
Winner of Poetry Category of The Paris Book Festival (2016)
Charles P Ries (born 1952) is an American poet and writer. He is currently the Senior Director of Principle Gifts and Innovation at Marquette University. He is a founding member of the oldest fresh water surf club on the Great Lakes, called, The Lake Shore Surf Club.[1][2][3] He is a co-founder of The Commons, a student entrepreneurial skills accelerator based out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.[4][5]
Contents [hide]
1 Early Life
2 Literary career
3 Books
4 Awards and recognition
5 References
6 External links
Early Life[edit]
Ries was born into a catholic family in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. His parents’ names, Leo and Ann Ries. He grew up on a mink farm outside of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Ries attended Sheboygan South High School and received his degree from the University of Wisconsin. After completing his graduation, he went to London and then to North Africa where he studied Islamic Mysticism and Sufism. He also worked with Dalai Lama during a program involving religious leaders and psychotherapists. [6]
Literary career[edit]
Ries began his literary career late in life by writing poetry and gradually began writing short stories, poetry reviews, interviews, articles and essays. He authored six poetry books and a novel based on memory.[7] In 2013, his book titled, Girl Friend & Other Mysteries of Love was recognized as an Outstanding Achievement by Wisconsin Library Association[8] and in 2016 it won the poetry category of The Paris Book Festival. From 1998 to 2013, his works were published in the independent small press and appeared in over two hundred print and electronic publications.[9][10] In 2009, he took a hiatus and resumed his literary work later in 2013.[11][12][13] In 2015, Ries published The Fathers We Find, a fictional memoir, based in Southeastern Wisconsin between 1950 and 1971. He is the former poetry editor for Word Riot, ESC! and Pass Port Journal. He is also a former board member of the Woodland Pattern Book Center, Milwaukee. He also served on the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission.[14]
Books[edit]
The Fathers We Find: The Making of a Pleasant Humble Boy, 2015
Girl Friend & Other Mysteries of Love , 2013
I'd Rather Be Mexican, 2005
The Last Time, 2005
Odd, 2004
Monje Malo Speaks English, 2003
Bad Monk: Neither Here Nor There, 2001
[15]
Awards and recognition[edit]
In 2009, Ries was awarded the Wisconsin Regional Writers Association “Jade Ring” Award for humorous poetry.[16] He was nominated five times for the Pushcart Prize but never won.[17]
Charles P. Ries
Biography
Charles P. Ries lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His narrative poems, short stories, interviews, and poetry reviews have appeared in over two hundred print and electronic publications. He has received four Pushcart Prize nominations for his writing. He is the author of The Fathers We Find, a memoir as well as six books of poetry. He is completing work on a second novel titled, A LIFE BY INVITAION. Most recently he was awarded the Wisconsin Regional Writers Association “Jade Ring” Award for humorous poetry. He is the former poetry editor for Word Riot (www.wordriot.org) and a former member of the board at the Woodland Pattern Book Center. He will have new book of poetry published by Alternating Current Press in 2013 titled, Girl Friend & Other Mysteries of Love. His work is achieved at Marquette University and can be found at: (http://www.marquette.edu/library/archives/Mss/CPR/CPR-main.shtml). You may find his interview with Jane Crown by going to: www.janecrown.com and clicking on archived shows at the bottom of the page. He is a founding member of the Lake Shore Surf Club, the oldest fresh water surfing club on the Great Lakes (http://www.visitsheboygan.com/dairyland/).
QUOTED: "Ries combines his gift for language with an insight into the relationships at the core of the book."
The Fathers We Find
Charles Ries. Bad Monk, $14.99 e-book (296p) ISBN 978-0-692-48138-7
Five-time Pushcart Prize nominee Ries turns from poetry (Girl Friend & Other Mysteries of Love) to prose in this memoir of life in rural Wisconsin, sensitively capturing “the mysterious pieces of a boy on the verge of becoming.” Ries combines his gift for language with an insight into the relationships at the core of the book: “the parents we are given, and the parents we find.” He deals mostly with his father, a devout Catholic whose world was built on the “routines and rituals” of religion and running a successful mink farm, and whose “silent, stoic” personality Ries unsuccessfully tries to emulate. The memoir gives a detailed look at the “earthy way” of growing up raising and killing minks (“Death during pelting season was quick and painless”). But overall the focus is on the connection he lacks with his father but finds with other men, including his brothers and Marvin, the hired man on the farm, “who found his God in living, with the same passion that my father found in church.” Marvin is the exemplar of “the fathers we are given. Men who appear in our lives and magically see our nature and potential.” (BookLife)
QUOTED: "This is an age-old story but it is told with such clarity that it is one of the best tellings."
"This is a very, very good novel. A memoir. A difficult love story with many layers. Read it, then give it to a friend. Learn about mink and blackberry brandy… and love."
Pablo Teasedale Reviews
The Fathers We Find
by Charles P. Ries
The Fathers We Find by Charles P. Ries.
Available from: Charles P. Ries, 5821 W. Trenton Place, Milwaukee, WI 53213
$13.00 includes postage.
It is 3:30 a.m. and I am sitting in my apartment overlooking an empty Pacific Avenue. The St. George is quiet tonight and so is the city of Santa Cruz. I have just finished The Fathers We Find and want to make a few comments about this 118-page novel.
First, it was given to me by poet Nancy Gauquier who had read it and liked it. Second, I met Charles not long ago here in town when he was the featured reader at The Wired Wash Cafe which is an important part of Santa Cruz's (and California's) poetry life. It is a noisy laundromat with espresso machines and a dangerous restroom. "What," I asked myself, "is Charles P. Ries doing here?" At a party later, I learned he had been imported by Christopher Robin ( Zen Baby) and Brian Morrisey (Poesy ). I barely got to talk with Charles, but I was very interested in his poetry and his thought. Now having read this novel, I understand why he seemed so interesting. He is.
While I was reading I had an awareness occur twice that surprised me: I forgot I was reading. The writing was so clear that it just seemed to be going into my consciousness with no effort on my part. I decided that either Charles Ries is an excellent writer or he had found a hole in my head just the right size to insert a nozzle to pour the information into my brain. I guess it must be that he is an excellent writer.
The novel deals with the difficult subject of fathers. Since I was both born and adopted, I had two fathers, and I am a father now, so I know how confusing and profound both having fathers and being a father can be. (Is!) But here in this memoir we see an iconic father…a successful mink farming pillar of the Catholic Church…a quiet and disturbingly bound up man with very high standards…Charles's father.
That this highly intelligent, sensitive, and aware poet I met, and this almost scary (yet strangely beautiful) father of his, had at one time almost come to blows did not surprise me. And it really makes me wonder at how we are shaped by strong forces in our childhoods, and at how hard it can be to discover that there is a much different entity coming into being which somehow has to break free of the shapers and shape itself.
This is an age-old story but it is told with such clarity that it is one of the best tellings. I laughed, I cried. I am grateful. Another thing that happened to me (that I also liked) as I read, was that I saw or felt or somehow knew and understood that the word "mink" and the term "blackberry brandy" could be used in one sentence to recreate an exquisite juxtaposition…one I can feel, smell, taste, see and…almost…hear. (There is mud in this story too.)
This is a very, very good novel. A memoir. A difficult love story with many layers. Read it, then give it to a friend. Learn about mink and blackberry brandy… and love.
QUOTED: "Charles P. Ries is guide, guru, therapist, participant, and equal-opportunity opportunist, as well as the blind leading the lost. Yet, through it all, his true north remains love."
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Girl Friend & Other Mysteries of Love by Charles P. Ries
Girl Friend
& Other Mysteries of Love
by
Charles P. Ries
A full-sized collection of new and selected love poems by four-time Pushcart Prize nominee Charles P. Ries, now available in perfect-bound paperback.
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ISBN-13: 978-0615764344
ISBN-10: 0615764347
$11.99
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“They’re complex,
these things we
build our hearts around.”
Times change. People change. Places change. The good and the bad comes and goes. We move in circles; we move in lines; we move in slow motion; we move like hurricanes. The more things change, the more they remain the same. But one thing remains constant through all of time and place:
Love.
Girl Friend & Other Mysteries of Love is a meditation on the ebb and flow of love in these changing times. The screw-ups, suck-ups, epiphanies, black holes, celestial awakenings, and confusions of the thing considered mystical to some, and impossible to others. Told from the perspective of a middle-aged lover-in-training, these poems have all the joy and all the pain and all the wonder, but resonate through eyes that have traveled a few miles down that sometimes-lonesome highway of romance.
A book of meaning, wonder, laughter, and tears that women will adore … but don’t be fooled, men, because you’ll root for it, too! Relatable on every level with tales of woe and joy; while the women are smiling in romantic bliss, you men will be wondering where this “guidebook” has been all your lives. Romance is not dead! Knuckleheads still abound! Love, sweet love is still the kindest medicine of them all.
While the young may suffer from love, it takes an experienced traveler to understand what to make of it. Charles P. Ries is guide, guru, therapist, participant, and equal-opportunity opportunist, as well as the blind leading the lost. Yet, through it all, his true north remains love, and his destination remains this singular realization of what it is to be fully alive and human.
Ries explores complexities, humor of love through poems
March 08, 2013
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In "Girl Friend & Other Mysteries of Love: New and Selected Poems" (Propaganda Press, $11.99), Charles Ries speaks, frequently with humor, as a representative of "the elegantly simpler gender," also known as "clueless," or male.
Ries will read from his poems at 2 p.m. March 16 at Boswell Book Co., 2559 N. Downer Ave.
In "Hearing Perfectly," the audiologist tells Ries' poetic persona "You're missing all the high-pitched, soft-consonant/ sounds," to which he responds, "You mean women's voices?" and later muses, "Isn't it odd, how men suffer this deafness?"
The protagonist of "You Never Left" takes the urn of his beloved's ashes everywhere, but is far from morbid about it, even talking naughtily to her cremains: "Would you mind if I shake you, baby. . . . " Love, loss and death in the same breezy poem: well played, Mr. Ries.
In the delightful "Sex for Liver," his partner has sought for years the combo of medication that will alleviate her depression but not ruin her desire to make love.
She finally settles on a medication that allows the "pleasures of intimacy" and leads to a surprising pregame meal.
Not all of Ries' "Mysteries of Love" are about paramours.
In "First Blood," when a 10½-year-old daughter has her first period, Dad scrambles mentally for what to say and do, lamenting the early onset of menstruation for a girl "when she still wants to be a boy,/Runs faster than any boy."
Poet B.J. Best will join Ries at the March 16 reading. Best's new "But Our Princess Is In Another Castle" (Rose Metal Press, $14.95) is a collection of prose poems that use imagery and other elements from classic video games, such as Mario, Pac-Man and "Space Invaders."
Best, who teaches at Carroll University in Waukesha, also wrote the collection "Birds of Wisconsin."
- Jim Higgins
QUOTED: "These are not carefully crafted or edited poems. The line breaks tend to be erratic, and copy could have used some editing. But the poems enchant with rich language, evoking a place and a longing that is as familiar as travel posters, but as exotic and full of the senses as our dreams. The lines flow, ramble and leap, as thought, dream and memories collide."
"Ries takes us along with him to his early enchantment with his Shangri-La, and we enjoy the journey. It does raise the question: once enchanted, can the poet ever come back to Birch Street?"
Book Review
I'd Rather Be Mexican by Charles Ries. W. Somerville, MA: Červená Barva Press, 2010. $7
Reviewed by Alice D'Alessio
I must confess I was drawn to this chapbook by its title, since I've also had the impulse to trade in a pale Anglo self for a Latin persona, particularly when in Mexico. Also, of course, because I know Charles Ries to be a fine poet and was curious to see how he would express this yearning. He didn't let me down, leaping directly into cherished images.
I'd Rather Be Mexican was originally published by Tamafyhr Mountain Poetry in 2005, and reprinted in 2010 by Červenà Barva Press in Massachusetts. A number of the poems have appeared in more recent publications—five poetry books, total, for which he has received a number of Pushcart nominations.
Starting with the cover of this book—a photograph of iconic fancy-dressed skeletons, taken in a museum in Guanajuato—to the imagery throughout, the book tugs at the sensibilities of anyone who has been captivated by the color, music, romance and exuberance of our neighbor to the south. Red is frequently invoked in flower, dress, red lips (interestingly enough, the name of the publisher, Červenà Brava means "Red Color" in Czech); the imagery is erotic. Mexico becomes "a full woman whose face glistens like polished copper in morning light…She satiates me into silence and I willingly dissolve into her olive colored thighs."
His introductory prose poem, "Just Stories," gives his first impressions: " the women are all beautiful …the men wear tight black pants" … "They all talk and sing in the snappy Mexican way"…"Mexicans choose to be happy." Predictable, perhaps; even cliché. (And probably something with which many Mexicans would take issue).
This rambling interior monologue reflects the disorientation of entering a foreign culture, along with the euphoria of escape—"Free to be free of them, floating higher" (like the helium balloon at a family picnic) " Out-reached hands. Out of sight." Escape from dailiness, ordinariness, obligation, to an exotic, more inspiring existence. Freedom. But also, a place where he can write: "Heaven on earth is the freedom to wander in one's mind. To line words up in single file, filling in the gaps, letting fantasy lead the reader to their [sic] own conclusion." What writer can not relate to that?! The poem ends with a Ries observation that he will return to in subsequent books: "And when I gaze at the stars' abundance…I weep at the oddness of/ life."
The remaining 16 poems visit the predictable sites—the bars and cathedrals, the graveyard, bullfight and Holy Friday festival where, in "Mexicans Love a King," Ries tells us: "On Holy Friday they roll their King out of moth balls/and carry him through the street on the/shoulders of twelve strong Indians/ while the beer and tequila flows, and the ladies weep." One gets the impression that for someone raised Catholic in Wisconsin, this Mexican interpretation of holy days delights him.
But it is not only the festivals, women and tequila that inspire Ries. In his poem "Reading Octavio Paz," he imagines the Mexican poets "impregnating my fiction with new possibilities"—releasing him from the prison of his Wisconsin imagination and evoking two of the most lyrical metaphors in the book. "What is my dream?" he asks in another prose poem "Fly, Fall Dreaming," "In Mexico, I become Latin and romantic." He assumes his Latin persona, Carlos, and mines a rich new source.
The urge to escape to warmer, more exotic places for creative fulfillment is not new. All the English poets made tracks for Italy, rhapsodizing on the climate, the ruins, the scenery, and littering the landscape with their odes and tombs. Ries follows a well-worn path. Is it the cold that stifles us, or the lingering tenets of dutiful upbringing? Or just that here is where home and obligations—the need to earn a living and lead honorable lives—"the jail we carry in our hearts "—chews away at our longing to be unfettered, our 'time to wander in our mind?'
These are not carefully crafted or edited poems. The line breaks tend to be erratic, and copy could have used some editing. But the poems enchant with rich language, evoking a place and a longing that is as familiar as travel posters, but as exotic and full of the senses as our dreams. The lines flow, ramble and leap, as thought, dream and memories collide.
Perhaps with recent socio/political upheaval in Mexico, drug war horrors, and immigration issues, the poems feel almost dated, evoking a simpler, more innocent time. But fortunately, poetry can eschew politics and leap directly into fantasy. Ries takes us along with him to his early enchantment with his Shangri-La, and we enjoy the journey. It does raise the question: once enchanted, can the poet ever come back to Birch Street, to where 'his ass is nailed to the porch'?
Reading Octavio Paz
(Early Poems 1935-1955)
Mexican poets often leap from sidewalk
to roof top. One foot on the earth and
the other on a cloud of cotton candy.
They gaze at death and see dancing skulls
with smiles stretching as far and wide
as the Milky Way.
I close my eyes and see within myself a naked boy
sitting beneath a vast pecan tree. From its branches
hang stars. This canopy of shade becomes my universe.
Carlos blows into Olivia's ear a love whisper,
sending a waterfall of kisses cascading out her
mouth onto brown soil where white flowers erupt.
A prisoner of my imagination, I turn to face myself
and shout, "who's there?" The Mexican poets have
impregnated my fiction with new possibilities.
Alice D'Alessio is the author of the biography, Uncommon Sense: the Biography of Marshall Erdman. Her poetry book, A Blessing of Trees, was winner of the 2004 Posner Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers, and her 2009 book, Days We Are Given, was first place winner in the Earth's Daughters chapbook contest. She is contributing editor to Woodlands and Prairies Magazine.
QUOTED: "Charles Ries has again put together a collection of poems that reflect his ability to examine his surroundings and himself with a skeptic's eye and a romanticist's ideals. When he combines the two, he offers readers a rich assortment of perspectives of the human condition–both actual and imagined. He has succeeded in doing that in The Last Time."
"With his heart steeped in the beauty, emotionality and the culture of Mexico, but with his feet planted in Wisconsin, Ries demonstrates his progress as a poet and participant in our current society."
THE LAST TIME
by Charles Ries
The Moon
PO Box 3444
Tucson, AZ 85722
$5.00
Review By: Lou Roach
Charles Ries has again put together a collection of poems that reflect his ability
to examine his surroundings and himself with a skeptic's eye and a romanticist's
ideals. When he combines the two, he offers readers a rich assortment of perspectives of the human condition---both actual and imagined. He has succeeded in doing that in THE LAST TIME, his fourth book of poetry, published recently by The Moon of Tucson, Arizona.
With his heart steeped in the beauty, emotionality and the culture of Mexico, but with
his feet planted in Wisconsin, Ries demonstrates his progress as a poet and participant in our current society. He has, in the past, been described as failing "to realize simplicity" as the way to reach the state of happiness. In this newest work,he presents several poems that address his understanding of the need to live simply, yet his words acknowledge how the world gets in his way, as it does for all of us.
"Thin Sip of Water" indicates the changes in his outlook. "And why was I even trying to warm this glacier?/ I guess hoping hot lava ran beneath such cold weather veins./ Sweet surrender and Patsy Cline might co-habit this vision in black velvet."/
In a brief interview, when asked about his love of all things Hispanic, Ries noted "It
is a wonderful collision of culture, religion, art and poverty. It has not become
bloated with money and stuff as ours has. . .Mexico is magic to me...The people don't need a priest as intermediary (with God.) His view of Mexico has become synonymous with dreams as in "Fly, Fall Dreaming," where he admits, "My dream today is for a lover./ My dream doesn't require her to grow old with me and rub my forehead as I lay dying./ She only needs to fill my dream time./ My moment here and now.// Isn't that why we dream?/ To have the impossible for just a moment?/ To reach for things beyond our grasp during those times when falling and dreaming live suspended above our kitchen sink, answering machine and dinner table?"//
Ries clearly knows that life is never predictable. He also knows enough to recognize meaningful bits of time as they occur. In "Red Head," (about a real mentor/friend/muse), the poet speaks pensively: "When I am with her, being is like brathing and long silences are as productive as two hour conversations./ Love often finds us this way---Right person, wrong place/ Wrong time, right person/ Right woman, near death."/ He concludes, "I will be happy to hold her in my heart as a perfect moment when lkove blew through the right window at the wrong time."
The reader understands Ries would prefer to keep these moment close, even when outlines in sadness, rather than not have them at all. With "Anti-Gravity Man,"
Ries relates to that empty place in all humans, the part of us that sets us on a path marked by introspection, dreams, wishes and an unending search for the person, the work or the passion that we hope may fill that mysteriously barren space. Ries writes, "He tried to fill the hole-- find/ the center of what fell out of him."/ He describes the uncertainty of direction that underlies most lives: "Most days he felt he wasn't even standing on/ earth. But he wanted to.// He theorized that a heart must hold the universe and weigh ten thousand pounds./ It is a heart that keeps feet on the floor."//
A man who has lived much---emotionally, intellectually and spiritually---Ries reveals his comprehension of how connection to others makes us real when he states, "Nothing mattered to this untethered floating pilgrim, but finding a cure/ for his gaping hole. A yearning he did not acknowledge until the day/ he became firmly rooted in her."
Throughout this book of poetry, Ries examines the joys of being truly alive. He frequently emphasizes just how difficult humans find the reach for perfection, as in "Perfect Saint," where he appreciates a Latin saint, Maximon, who forgives "any transgression." "He rises with the sun and burns all night long.// How glorious to be naked/ beneath a blanket of forgiveness."//
"Bad Buddha" presents Ries's wish to give in to wild emotionality, his desire to spend some time living without detachment and discernment. The reader realizes that beneath his pieceful exterior, odd pieces of anger and indignation roil within his inner self and that even though he had actively sought calm for himself, there are days he would choose to move outside his compassion, like much of the rest of the world. "I'd like a few of my old attachments/ back. Wrap a tasty wad of anger/ around my fist and pound it home/ . . .So come to think of it, I guess I do/ have a few nasty attachments dangling/ from my purified psyche. . ."/
The range of the poems in THE LAST TIME makes known the poet's personal growth since the publication of his first book, BAD MONK: Neither Here Nor There. He is less confused about love and more in tune with what love means. He tells richer stories and owns more depth of feeliung than in his previous offering. We benefit exponentially from his development as a poet.
One of Ries's poems, "Below the Floor," underscores how distance between self and others causes isolation, and how he has dealt with that distance on one occasion. "I live in the basement/ beneath the footstepts/...My es-wife lives one floor above,/ 10,000 miles away./ My daughters with wings/ sail between heaven and earth./ Getting honey from the clouds/ and iron from the brown soil.// My possessions are ideas./ My lovers' names all rhyme./ My conquests are fictionalized.// The shadow side of home sweet home,/ where a giant prowls naked beneath the floor ..."/
The title poem, "The Last Time," is both sadly reminiscent and celebratory of the
paradoxes of love. Ries captures the sensuality, the fragility and the wonder of how
love begins and how, unfortunately, it may end. He also reminds us that we treasure the fragments that remain because of the delight, the heightened senses that keep us open to opportunity. Ries asks, "Do you suppose love - true love - parts/ the curtain and allows angels and night visitors/ to circle this light? A light that smells like cinnamon/ and sounds like children's whispers./ We had only to breathe the same air to believe it."//
In that poem, as in others in the book, Ries demonstrates his increasing ability to see and describe the unpredictability of relationships, the pursuit of living fully, and the courage to see life changes with "new eyes," as Proust encuraged all of us to do. Ries's attitude shows us how.
The Last Time
by Charles Ries
$5.00
The Moon
PO Box 3444, Tucson, AZ 85722
Charles Ries has again put together a collection of poems that reflect his ability to examine his surroundings and himself with a skeptic’s eye and a romanticist’s ideals. When he combines the two, he offers readers a rich assortment of perspectives of the human condition—both actual and imagined. He has succeeded in doing that in The Last Time, his fourth book of poetry, published recently by The Moon of Tucson, Arizona.
With his heart steeped in the beauty, emotionality and the culture of Mexico, but with his feet planted in Wisconsin, Ries demonstrates his progress as a poet and participant in our current society. He has, in the past, been described as failing “to realize simplicity” as the way to reach the state of happiness. In this newest work, he presents several poems that address his understanding of the need to live simply, yet his words acknowledge how the world gets in his way, as it does for all of us.
“Thin Sip of Ice Water” indicates the changes in his outlook. “And why was I even trying to warm this glacier?/ I guess hoping hot lava ran beneath such cold-weather veins./ Sweet surrender and Patsy Cline might co-habit this vision in black velvet.” /
In a brief interview, when asked about his love of all things Hispanic, Ries noted “It is a wonderful collision of culture, religion, art and poverty. It has not become bloated with money and stuff as ours has … Mexico is magic to me … The people … don’t need a priest as intermediary (with God.)” His view of Mexico has become synonymous with dreams as in “Fly, Fall Dreaming,” where he admits, “My dream today is for a lover./ My dream doesn’t require her to grow old with me and rub my forehead as I lay dying./ She only needs to fill my dream time./ My moment here and now.// Isn’t that why we dream?/ To have the impossible for just a moment?/ To reach for things beyond our grasp during those times when falling and dreaming live suspended above our kitchen sink, answering machine and dinner table?”//
Ries clearly knows that life is never predictable. He also knows enough to recognize meaningful bits of time as they occur. In “Red Head,” (about a real mentor/friend/muse), the poet speaks pensively: ”When I am with her, being is like breathing and long silences are as productive as two-hour conversations./ Love often finds us this way—/ Right person, wrong place/ Wrong time, right person/ Right woman, near death.”/ He concludes, “I will be happy to hold her in my heart as a perfect moment when love blew through the right window at the wrong time.”
The reader understands Ries would prefer to keep these moments close, even when outlined in sadness, rather than not have them at all. With “Anti-Gravity Man,” Ries relates to that empty place in all humans, the part of us that sets us on a path marked by introspection, dreams, wishes and an unending search for the person, the work or the passion that we hope may fill that mysteriously barren space. Ries writes, “ He tried to fill the hole—find/ the center of what fell out of him.”/ He describes the uncertainty of direction that underlies most lives: “Most days he felt he wasn’t even standing on/ earth. But he wanted to.// He theorized that a heart must hold the universe and weigh ten thousand pounds./ It is a heart that keeps feet on the floor.”//
A man who has lived much—emotionally, intellectually and spiritually, Ries reveals his comprehension of how connection to others makes us real when he states, ”Nothing mattered to this untethered floating pilgrim, but finding a cure/ for his gaping hole. A yearning he did not acknowledge until the day/ he became firmly rooted in her.”//
Throughout this book of poetry, Ries examines the joys of being truly alive. He frequently emphasizes just how difficult humans find the reach for perfection, as in “Perfect Saint,” where he appreciates a Latin saint, Maximon, who forgives “any transgression.” “He rises with the sun and burns all night long.// How glorious to be naked/ beneath a blanket of forgiveness.”//
“Bad Buddha” presents Ries’s wish to give into wild emotionality, his desire to spend some time living without detachment and discernment. The reader realizes that beneath his peaceful exterior, odd pieces of anger and indignation roil within his inner self and that even though he had actively sought calm for himself, there are days he would choose to move outside his compassion like much of the rest of the world. “I’d like a few of my old attachments/ back. Wrap a tasty wad of anger/ around my fist and pound it home/ … So come to think of it, I guess I do/ have a few nasty attachments dangling / from my purified psyche …”/
The range of the poems in The Last Time makes known the poet’s personal growth since the publication of his first book, Bad Monk: Neither Here Nor There. He is less confused about love and more in tune with what love means. He tells richer stories and owns more depth of feeling than in his previous offerings.We benefit exponentially from his development as a poet.
One of Ries’s poems, “Below the Floor,” underscores how distance between self and others causes isolation, and how he has dealt with that distance one occasion. “I live in the basement/beneath the footsteps./ . . . My ex-wife lives one floor above,/ 10,000 miles away./ My daughters with wings/ sail between heaven and earth./ Getting honey from the clouds/ and iron from the brown soil.// My possessions are ideas./ My lovers’ names all rhyme./ My conquests are fictionalized.// The shadow side of home sweet home,/ where a giant prowls naked beneath the floor …”/
The title poem, “The Last Time,” is both sadly reminiscent and celebratory of the paradoxes of love. Ries captures the sensuality, the fragility and the wonder of how love begins and how, unfortunately, it may end. He also reminds us that we treasure the fragments that remain because of the delight, the heightened senses that keep us open to opportunity. Ries asks,”Do you suppose love—true love—parts/ the curtain and allows angels and night visitors/ to circle this light? A light that smells like cinnamon/ and sounds like children’s whispers./ We had only to breathe the same air to believe it.”//
In that poem, as in others in the book, Ries demonstrates his increasing ability to see and describe the Unpredictability of relationships, the pursuit of living fully, and the courage to see life changes with “new eyes,” as Proust encouraged all of us to do. Ries’s attitude shows us how.
—Lou Roach (This review was first published in Free Verse)