Bio | Mechanical Fireflies | Possum Nocturne | Black Tupelo Country | Where We Come From | Awards | Sample Poems | Contact

Winner of the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry Published by BkMk Press Winner, Eric Hoffer Book Award for Poetry Finalist, ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award Finalist, USA Books, The National Best Books 2008 Awards

"Black Tupelo Country is a book of cinematic lushness razored with ache. These poems dwell in the dark, mutable seam between the natural and interior worlds." — Leslie Adrienne Miller "Deeply felt as a prayer, poems in Black Tupelo Country are meditations crafted by an emotionally complex mind exploring 'the way a landscape enters the body.' Rivers and lakes sepulcher memory that fuels these dense and haunting poems." —Vivian Shipley "Taken individually, the poems are things of beauty and mystery. But it's as a whole that Black Tupelo Country gains its power. A 'strange premonitory wind' blows through the collection, an incantation based on the seen and the invisible. Like nature's changes, Ramspeck's poetry feels inevitable and momentous." —Traci Vogel, Kenyon College Alumni Bulletin - 31.4 Link to Black Tupelo Country