Avail Yourself Balefire: Poems Composed By Shann Ray Readily Available As Audiobook

is Shann Ray's debut book of poems, and contains a range of lyric and narrative poems that challenge the complexities of gender, race, and loss.
  He returns to the rugged masculinity encountered in his earlier American Book Award winning collection of short stories, American Masculine,   Paul Constant of Seattle's alt weekly, The Stranger, said Ray's work is about "violence, Montana, and sweet, sweet love, "  Balefire considers the threshold over which a man must pass to regain himself, and the desolation he experiences in stumbling toward an experience of the feminine no longer defined by apathy, violence, or greed.
Balefire affirms love and beauty, refined by the fires of the contemporary American West,                 Excellent poetry, full of color, warmth, and depth, Ray continues to work material of the same austere beauty as his short story collection, American Masculine, Stories of domestic life, both good and very bad, take place against a backdrop of the Montana landscape,

"where they stand and look out, down a draw,
of scrub pine and mottled veins of sage,
blown timothy grass bent to the ground
and everything converging
along the silverblue of the big river, 
the sweep of the valley,
the four directions, the compass rose,

and far off a land mass: the broad back
of a giant sleeper.
"

I particularly enjoyed the alternation between poems with long, luxurious lines, and briefer, almost aphoristic lines, One can extract from poems a line here or there, and set those brief lines in a frame to be enjoyed, Here's two: 

on the lips of a lover/rough honey,

as the autumn trees/carrying dusk in their arms,

Were Shann Ray's poems to survive in fragments, like a latterday Sappho, a few lines like these quickly convey his sensitivity, sense of language, and vision.
Highly recommended! SHANN RAY is the winner of the Subterrain Poetry Prize and the Pacific Northwest Inlander Short Story Award, His work has appeared in Montana Quarterly, Northwest , McSweeneys, Narrative, StoryQuarterly, Poetry International and other venues, He grew up in Montana, spent part of his childhood on the Northern Cheyenne reservation, and has lived in L, A. , Alaska, Germany and Canada. His poetry was an open competition winner in the Best New Poets series, His debut collection of short stories, AMERICAN MASCULINE, won the Bread Loaf Writers Conference Bakeless Prize and appears with Graywolf Press, Praise for AMERICAN MASCULINE: Shann Rays prose brings to mind Cormac McCarthy and Annie Proulx but is, thankfully, entirely his own, His wo SHANN RAY is the winner of the Subterrain Poetry Prize and the Pacific Northwest Inlander Short Story Award, His work has appeared in Montana Quarterly, Northwest , McSweeney's, Narrative, StoryQuarterly, Poetry International and other venues, He grew up in Montana, spent part of his childhood on the Northern Cheyenne reservation, and has lived in L, A. , Alaska, Germany and Canada. His poetry was an open competition winner in the Best New Poets series, His debut collection of short stories, AMERICAN MASCULINE, won the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Bakeless Prize and appears with Graywolf Press, Praise for AMERICAN MASCULINE: "Shann Ray's prose brings to mind Cormac McCarthy and Annie Proulx but is, thankfully, entirely his own, His work is lyrical, prophetic, brutal yet ultimately hopeful, " Dave Eggers, National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for WHAT IS THE WHAT"Shann Ray writes about small western towns and their residents in tough, poetic, and beautiful ways.
I recognize many of these people, and that's good, but I'm also surprised and stunned by many others, which is great, Buy the book and read it tonight, You'll love it, too. "Sherman Alexie, National Book Award Winner for THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART TIME INDIAN, Pen Faulkner Award Winner for WAR DANCES“Written in prose both fierce and elegant, American Masculine is a commanding debut.
With stories set in and around the reservation lands of the American West, Shann Ray hones the cutting edge between desire and need, despair and beauty.
The scope of these stories and depth of their complexity result in an extraordinary collection that is the gift of an exceptional talent, I am reminded once again, of what it means to encounter genuine grace, ” Claire Davis, author of WINTER RANGE"The sentences in this book have such grace and

muscularity that they seem performed than written, and the author's images and events carry the nearly visceral weight of memory AMERICAN MASCULINE is a powerful, resonant work of literature, and Shann Ray is a masterful and original writer.
"Robert Boswell, Bakeless Prize Judge"Shann Ray has been up close with the vividly contrary complexities of the present day American West, the harshness and sweetness.
He's seen a lot of vast and miniscule things, and tells of them with compelling honesty, What a fine break out collection, "William Kittredge, author of HOLE IN THE SKY“Shann Ray knows his place and he knows his people, AMERICAN MASCULINE is a rock solid, permanent collection with a great deal of moral heft, These Montana stories dig deep into the heart of a landscape and importantly into the hearts of flawed men and women whose lives, in Ray's hands, are given real weight and meaning.
I'm grateful for this collection, for the depth of these characters and the beautiful patience of this writing, ” Peter Orner, author of THE SECOND COMING OF MAVALA SHICONGO"AMERICAN MASCULINE is a powerful fiction debut, These ten stories reveal Shann Ray's unique voice, his lyrical vision of the West, and his always eloquent contemplation of the mysteries of grace and forgiveness.
"Jess Walter, National Book Award finalist for THE ZERO"Shann Ray writes about men and women, white and Native American, full bred and half bred he writes about love and betrayal, alcohol and abuse, pride, vanity, everyday losses and recoveries transpiring in ranch towns and small cities.
Most of all he writes about the soul in search of its reason and its peace, "Tom Jenks, Editor, Narrative MagazineCo editor with Raymond Carver of AMERICAN SHORT STORY MASTERPIECES"Bold, Lyrical. Deeply felt. Fiercely written. In these stories, Shann Ray grapples with the terrible hurt we inflict on those we love, and finds that reconciliation, if far off, is at least possible.
" Graywolf sitelink.