The Ballad Rode into Town, Poems by William Baer

The rollicking poems of William Baer's The Ballad Rode into Town are a tour-de-force, rendering their comic tale with effortless, formal grace.

Sample Poems by William Baer

"I don't know any other poet but William Baer better equipped to restore the ballad to popularity. The Ballad Rode into Town will captivate people who ordinarily don't like poetry as well as people who do. Baer often informs contemporary settings with language and devices straight out of English and Scottish popular ballads. Like those great medieval forerunners, he gives us passion, sudden death, and melodrama in infectious rhymed stanzas, surprising us with plot twists and horrific outrage ("Don't fear to kiss my goat-like face, / or smell my bitter smell, / just taste the bile from off my lips, / for I'm the king of Hell!"). It's a wonderful book, one for both gobbling down and cherishing." - X. J. Kennedy

William Baer is the author of twelve books, including "Borges" and Other Sonnets; Luis de Camoes: Selected Sonnets; Writing Metrical Poetry; and Fourteen on Form: Conversations with Poets. He has been the recipient of a Fulbright, an NEA Creative Writing Grant, the T. S. Eliot Poetry Award, and the Jack Nicholson Screenwriting Award. His poetry has appeared in the American Scholar, Hudson Review, Kenyon Review, London Magazine, New Criterion, Poetry, Ploughshares, and Southern Review.The founding editor of The Formalist (1990-2004), he is also the founding director of the Richard Wilbur Poetry Series, the poetry editor and film critic for Crisis, and a contributing editor for Measure.

ISBN 978-1933456867, 88 pages, $17.00

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