Our eyes are instruments of light that register darkness as absence of light. We never see darkness. We don't know for certain what it is. Shadows moving under the moon and shade growing from the ground in sunlight give the illusion that darkness moves. Even night appears to slide around the planet, but darkness never moves, only is moved, controlled by the position of light. Our bodies, filled with darkness, move darkness, give darkness a self. These poems track that movement, metaphorically and literally, search for the opposite of self, as light is the opposite of darkness."His poetry is distinctive, enjoyable, audacious." Poetry Ireland ReviewRon Houchin, a retired public school teacher in the Appalachian region of southernmost Ohio, taught for thirty years. Though raised on the remote banks of the Ohio River in Huntington, West Virginia, he has travelled throughout Europe, Canada, and the U.S. His work has appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly and over two hundred other venues. He has been awarded an Ohio Arts Council Grant for teachers of the arts, a tutorial fellowship to teach in a Dublin writing workshop, a poetry prize from Indiana University, as well as a book of the year award from the Appalachian Writers' Association. His poems have been featured on Verse Daily. He has published three collections with Salmon.
