The Border: Poems

by Cleatus Rattan

A volume of poetry by Cleatus Rattan, a former marine who ranches 100 miles west of Fort Worth near Cisco, a small town of some 3000 souls cinched by the Bible Belt. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1881515478
• ISBN13: 9781881515470
• Release Date: July 2002
• Publisher: Texas Review Press
• Length: 82 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.1" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

To be read slowly...

I found this book to be an incredible compilation of poetry, if time is taken to read each work slowly. Each reading of In Cisco reveals something new to me, whether an image or a thought, and can stop me in my tracks for a moment. The author shows himself in each poem and by the end of reading them all, you want to seek him out because he feels like an old friend. I suggest this book to those who have time to consider each word, each line, each poem.

Rattan writes with a robust imagination

The Border showcases the poetry and lyrical style of Cleatus Rattan, a former academician (he recently retired from the English Department at Cisco Community College) and a Texas rancher (a hundred miles west of Fort Worth near the small Bible Belt community of Cisco). Rattan writes with a robust imagination, a compelling sense of humor, and an artist's eye for detail that readers will find as entertaining as it is thoughtful and thought provoking. In Cisco, Texas: Here, no one comes to visit/to see the sights. In San Francisco,/well scrubbed guests arrive at the door,/bags in hand, sheepish smiles/on their faces, with plans to scamper/in well known directions. Fewer friends/arrive now, but those who come/have no plans, their hands reach/for the dog's head. They see sheep,/mesquite, scrub oak, the smile/on my face, and stars meandering/to nowhere known.