Take Your Time Coming Home: Poems

By Cleatus Rattan

Take Your Time Coming Home, by Cleatus Rattan, poet Laureate of Texas for 2004-05, is a book that begins with initiation themes for the child and proceeds to initiation of the adolescent and college student and cowboy. Later, the poet tries to deal with the initiation to war. Finally, a prevailing theme is that of aging and death. The point-of-view is from the aging to the aged, then from the point-of-view of the loved-one survivor to the attitude of the dying to the survivor. Nothing morbid--just a refreshing look.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1881515826
• ISBN13: 9781881515821
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: Trp: The University Press of Shsu
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.37 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Cleatus Is Not Something Underfoot

Take Your Time Coming Home. By Cleatus Rattan. Huntsville: Texas Review Press, 2005. pbk. 81 pp. ISBN 1-881515-82-6. [...] Cleatus Rattan, Mayborn Professor at Mary Hardin-Baylor, has published several volumes, his own poems and explorations of major Europeans poets, and placed poems in many literary journals, including the prestigious Sewanee. Another recent title, The Border has been selected for wide study in Texas by the UIL. His honors accumulate. Here, the reader has sections: Now and Then, The Nerve of Some People, Remainder, and The Players. Rattan is plain-spoken, even seemingly casual, in his word plays. Sophomoric teenagers may roll their eyes, but adults will find Rattan's offerings insightful, amusing, melancholic, and tragic. Fortunately the "Good News" is that "Aunt Mary popped from a coven of Methodists" but was saved by the family. So through scenes of personal quandary, family moments, poetic dissonance, football, motorcycling, and ranching, Rattan reticently leads the reader to his places of private dialogue. It's worth listening and taking your time.