In addition to being a poet, I am the chair of the Cultural Arts Department at North Shore Community College, in Danvers, MA.  I am also a journalist and features have appeared in The Boston Phoenix, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, the old Saturday Review, and many other publications.  An offshoot of the journalism is an electronically-published book of humor, Damed if I Dotage!  The Boomer Looks at 50, available at SynergEbooks.com.   A local television program, The Writer's Block with John Ronan is going into its 14th year in Gloucester.  Other work in visual media includes the formation of an educational non-profit, American Storyboard, which produced the award-winning documentary Gloucester's Adventure: An American Story.  The hour-long video, on Gloucester and the National Landmark schooner Adventure, has aired on Boston's flagship PBS station, WGBH-TV.  More information  (I'd love to sell you a copy!!) on the production is available on my website: theronan.org.   My email address is: jronan@nscc.mass.edu.
 
 
 

QUOTATIONS AND COMMENTS ON WORK:

"Very good indeed: original, assured, just a touch sardonic."
Linda Pastan

"Many thanks for…your book.  It is terrific - tender and moving and beautifully written."
Tim O'Brien

"Ronan has a rare gift for the apt, unexpected phrase, the startling but accurate detail…  Word of a new book forthcoming from this unusual and richly gifted poet is very good news."   Rhina Espaillat

"Ronan loves and caresses words one at a time, a very careful, passionate writer."  Aurelie Sheehan
 
 
 
 

MY COMMENTARY ON "THE CENSUS OF LAVAL, 1192" AND OTHER WORK:

There are very few poetic topics: please love me; I don't want to die; Guinness is good for you…to name three.  The "Laval" poem sort of combines the first two in a plea for understanding because we are all so brief and vulnerable.

A couple of years ago, while researching a journalism topic, I stumbled on a website listing the names of hundreds and hundreds of medieval French men and women.  These were common people, not royalty or ecclesiastical figures and their names, often including occuptions, made them real.  I had to reach to them in this "same boat" poem.

This poem, as all my work, tries to make sense linguistically and philosophically.  It tries to be accessible to attentive reading.  I admire poets like Derek Mahon, Linda Pastan, Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, Seamus Heaney, May Swenson, and James Wright, because they are bright, have something to say, and make sense.  If poetry moves too far from the vernacular of its culture, it speaks to no one.