2004 Texas Poet Laureate Got Start in Texas Review Press
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Cleatus Rattan |
When writer Ben Fountain III recently introduced Cleatus
Rattan at a reading in Dallas, he said that Rattan’s
appointment as the 2004 Texas Poet Laureate “was the
best thing that came out of the Texas Legislature the entire
2003 session."
Rattan, a former Marine and cattle rancher, lives in the little
town of Cisco, 130 miles from Dallas, and has taught at Cisco
Community College for many years.
Paul Ruffin, director of the Texas Review Press at SHSU, said
that the distance to Dallas is well-etched in his mind since
his publishing enterprise launched Rattan’s career many
years ago with a poetry chapbook titled 130 Miles to Dallas.
“Cleatus has been on a roll ever since,” Ruffin
said, noting that The Border, which the press published
as winner of the Texas Review Poetry Prize in 2002, was the
book that won Rattan the recent honor.
“In fact,” Ruffin went on to say, “the UIL
[University Interscholastic League] recently selected The
Border as one of the four books on their reading list this
year. They called me and said that I could anticipate selling
maybe 4000 copies of the book, which would put it in the best-seller
category for poetry, so I had to go immediately and have another
3000 copies printed–not, mind you, that I am complaining.”
Rattan’s poetic career spans a period of some 30 years,
though he seriously got into poetry only after the publication
of 130 Miles to Dallas in 1982.
“I met Cleatus initially at a writing conference back
in the mid-seventies,” Ruffin said, “and he started
sending me poems, several of which I published in the review;
so after I started the poetry chapbook series at the press,
I invited him to send me a little collection, which he promptly
did. Wonderful poems they were too, all about family and cowboying,
the kind of poetry that academics generally sneer at, though
they are highly accomplished poems.”
Ruffin provided an example:
“The only way to keep your health
is to
eat what you don’t want, drink
what you don’t like, and do what you’d
rather not.” Mark Twain, Puddin’
Head Wilson
When it’s time to go
I want to know
so I can grab a breath
in an oak-floored pool hall
and wait for death
with a can of Skoal
and a case of Lone Star longneckers
while lucky old men play checkers.
Ruffin pointed out: “They are good, solid, down-to-earth
poems about real people in real situations– like Sandburg’s
work: low-key and conversational, as Cleatus has described them,
earthy and believable,” then added: “Cleatus has
a PhD and three master’s degrees, all to compensate for
flunking out of SMU in his early years, so I figure that he
could write erudite poetry that would perplex and confuse and
entice the critics if he wanted to, but he chooses to write
the kind of stuff that people can both understand and enjoy.
"The Border is likewise poetry of the land and
ranch and family, though it is a full-length book of poetry."
When asked what Rattan’s honor will mean to the press,
Ruffin answered, “Well, it just brings the press and our
university that much more distinction in the world of university
presses. We need all the exposure we can get. And selling 4000
copies of a book will certainly help our finances.”
The press has had several successes in recent years, with one
of their authors, Tom Franklin, going on to become a best-selling
novelist and another winning a Western Heritage Award. The Texas
Review will be a featured journal in a upcoming issue of Poets
and Writers Magazine, and Ruffin is interviewed as editor of
the review and director of the press in the 2004 edition of
Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market.
Upcoming books from the press, which publishes 10-12 books a
year, include Ty Cashion's Sam Houston State University:
A History, 1879-2004, a history of the Department of Pathology
at the Baylor College of Medicine, a history of Dr. George Beto,
and several books of poetry and fiction. They are also planning
to publish a 600-page historical novel set in Walker County.
Texas Review Press, an adjunct of the English Department at
SHSU and the only university press in the Texas State University
System, is a member of the Texas A & M University Press
Consortium, along with the presses at A&M, Baylor, SMU,
TCU, and the University of North Texas. Texas Review Press books
are listed on the A&M
University Press Web site.
- END -
News Release by Barbara Miles
SHSU Media Contact: Frank
Krystyniak
April 6, 2004
Please send comments, corrections, news tips to Today@Sam.edu
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