John J. Ronan publishes poetry regularly in national reviews and journals. Work has appeared in Confrontation, Hawai’i Pacific Review, Southern Humanities Review, Portland Review, Big Muddy, and Tar River Poetry. Poetry has also appeared in Folio, Threepenny Review, Hollins Critic, New England Review, Southern Poetry Review, Louisville Review, Greensboro Review, Notre Dame Review, NYQ, et al. He is active in many poetry organizations, including Poetry Society of American, AWP, and Mass Poetry.
Ronan’s latest collection, Taking the Train of Singularity South from Midtown, was published by The Backwaters Press of the University of Nebraska, in 2017; the book is a homage to New York City and American pluralism, and about which Rhina P. Espaillat said: “I’m rejoicing in the kind of poetry intended, not exclusively for the solitary reader communing with himself, but also – and maybe principally – for the larger Self…”
An earlier book, Marrowbone Lane, was named a “Highly Recommended” book by the Boston Authors Club in 2010. From the back cover of Marrowbone Lane: “Like the crows he describes in one of his witty, wry poems, John J. Ronan casts a cold eye on life, on death.” These edgy, intelligent poems brim with emotion without ever nearing the sentimental. Linda Pastan, former Poet Laureate of Maryland, has said of Mr. Ronan’s work: “Very good indeed: original, assured, just a touch sardonic.” And from Tim O’Brien, the National Book Award winner: “Terrific – tender and moving and beautifully written.” John was named a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow in 1999-2000 and has also been a Ucross Fellow and Bread Loaf Scholar.
In addition, John has translated and published work by the renown Uruguayan-French poet, Jules Supervielle. And, he used part of his NEA stipend to support a television program, The Writer’s Block, and for other writing projects in Gloucester, MA, where he was appointed for a term as Poet Laureate in June of 2008. One project was establishing a poetry scholarship at Gloucester’s high school. On John’s love of Gloucester, see his newspaper op-eds.
The Catching Self appeared in fall of 1996, a collection of twenty-four previously published poems. Carol Dine, the author of Trying to Understand the Lunar Eclipse and Naming the Sky, wrote that “From Ronan we get perception, humor, and language: ‘A fly orbits your forehead/ understudy buzzard/ the underworld’s national bird.’” The Curable Corpse appeared in December, 1999. The book’s twenty-one poems had been published individually in San Jose Studies, California Quarterly, The Recorder, and other journals. Rhina Espaillat, author of Where Horizons Go and winner of the prestigious T.S. Eliot Award, says that “Ronan has a rare gift for the apt, unexpected phrase, the startling but accurate detail … Word of a new book … is very good news.”
Early in 2001, Pudding House Publications announced the appearance of a new volume in its Greatest Hits series: John J. Ronan: Greatest Hits 1975-2000. The series, edited by publisher-poet Jennifer Bosveld, included such nationally acclaimed poets as Gary Fincke, Carol Morris, and Mark Halperin. An anthology, Sad Little Breathings and Other Acts of Ventriloquism, features two of John Ronan’s award-winning poems: “Nuance with Moose” and “The Five Stages of Grief.” The poems were chosen by Heather McHugh, who introduces the volume, from over 1,700 entries. The anthology was published by PublishingOnline in the fall of 2001.