Tilt a World

Around and around we go on this wild wheel of life, spinning belief into fact and fact into fiction. Certainty reduces nuance to the razored edge of a horizon line, missing the sky and sea. In Tilt a World, the author recognizes that what once bound and suspended us, has the power to bend and upend us. Whatever way you buckle in, none of us will get off this ride alive.

Tilt a World by Holly Brians Ragusa is an astounding expedition through serial so-called certainties that are ultimately so much more, like an intense carnival ride, by turns thrilling and frightening, but also a revelation of complexity and possibility, a matter of life and death, and a beacon of hope. The speaker in these poems is "an empath taking the side of humanity" in the midst of a world "[h]igh on waging war, conquering neighbors." She is "both light and dark / And must burn for it." And in the process, she draws us toward openness and light. This book is essential reading for our times.

-John Burroughs, U.S. National Beat Poet Laureate (2022-23) and

author of Rattle and Numb and The Wrest of the Worthwhile

In Tilt a World, from the opening image and poem, "Life flips us around," Brians Ragusa lets us know that we have paid for this ride, in a profound fashion. The collection's messaging addresses life's questions of maybe, the weight of life itself with a variation of societal perspectives. The collection both contains poignant and/or beautiful expressions that will recycle as echoes, well after the lines departs fingers, such as "Squirming, I repeatedly thrive and die in the petri dish of my mind," and in this mono-stitch line, "In this bifurcated, bracketed brain, it matters," or the beauty of "Sunsets will only scrape the tallest tree where light flutters silent as the moth." Ragusa designs puzzled poems with intricate detailed thoughts in formal and informal structures with sonic musicality. In this ride, Tilt a World depicts an awareness of humanity to visualize and embed in day-to-day life.  

    -Mervyn R. Seivwright, Stick, Hook, and a Pile of Yarn, Broken Sleep Books

An ambitious collection, in turns ineffable and grounded in harsh realities, Holly Brians Ragusa's Tilt A World serves up a compendium of poetic styles. Power lines and personal moments reveal the mind of a woman contemplating human connection and questioning power systems, from the "Soften your fist" of Connected to "Clocked hands and capitalism spin hamsters on a wheel/Pedaling pennies into other pockets" of Bootstrap. And yet, intimacy and love radiate from Death on Friday, Door Number Four, and so many more in this collection. From page to bright new page, something unexpected and yet familiar awaits you.

Jonie McIntire, Lucas County Poet Laureate, Ohio