Something an Atheist Might Bring Up at a Cocktail Party

Poetry. SOMETHING AN ATHEIST MIGHT BRING UP AT A COCKTAIL PARTY explores what it means to encounter crisis in a godless world. The poems range from lyrics to dramatic monologues, and while they do not all address the idea of religion directly, the sense of our aloneness informs each of the poems. I have followed Charles Rafferty's work for the better part of three decades now. His is an art driven by intelligence and passion, crafted in the best sense. He is a poet equally adept at working in strict form as out of it. More than simple execution, though, it's Rafferty's way of seeing that pushes his lines into rare territory. The poems in his most recent collection, SOMETHING AN ATHEIST MIGHT BRING UP AT A COCKTAIL PARTY, certainly fit that bill. Whether he is writing about the bustle city and country share, a boy's exotic dreams of hummingbirds and kayaks, swimming in the Great Salt Lake, or the pain of growing up Jesus's brother, there is a harmony of truth to Rafferty's poems that cannot be ignored. These are poems, and a poet, at full voice, necessary in all ways.--Jack B. Bedell, Poet Laureate, State of Louisiana, 2017-2019 In SOMETHING AN ATHEIST MIGHT BRING UP AT A COCKTAIL PARTY, Charles Rafferty continues his exploration of the biggest subjects, those for which there are no easy answers, in a voice that could be your next door neighbor's. Rafferty's speakers are plainspoken and surprisingly vulnerable, having been tossed about by daily agitations which have left them 'a little bit happy, / a little bit used.' They are often fathers who are carefully balancing the desire to guide with the growing understanding that acceptance may be the more lasting virtue. They find wisdom in the death of a pet bird ('Eat what you are / given, shit when you have to, / sing for the world beyond your reach'). They rely on love and connection to family. They are comfortable with knowing 'we revolve / around something more / beautiful than ourselves.' Charles Rafferty's poems have always cut through much of poetry's noisy distractions; the work he is writing now is even more distilled, more valuable to readers like you and me.--Leslie McGrath