Ron Koertge teaches at Hamline University in their low-residency MFA program for Children’s Writing. A prolific writer, he has published widely in such seminal magazines as Kayak and Poetry Now. Sumac Press issued The Father Poems in 1973, which was followed by many more books of poetry including Fever (Red Hen Press, 2007), Indigo (Red Hen Press, 2009), and Lies, Knives and Girls in Red Dresses (Candlewick Press, 2012). He is a contributor to many anthologies, such as Billy Collins’ Poetry 180 and Kirby & Hamby’s Seriously Funny. Koertge also writes fiction for teenagers, including many novels-in-verse: The Brimstone Journals, Stoner & Spaz, Strays, Shakespeare Bats Cleanup, and Shakespeare Makes the Playoffs. All were honored by the American Library Association and two received P.E.N. awards. He is the recipient of grants from the N.E.A. and the California Arts Council, and has poems in two volumes of Best American Poetry. He lives in South Pasadena, California.

Other poems by Ron Koertge in Verse Daily:
May 27, 2011:   "'Never Let Your Reader's Attention Wander.'" "In Cat People, Oliver marries Irena, but she says they can't..."
December 12, 2009:   [Emerson said, "Every word was once an animal." Re: bunny.] "Emerson said, "Every word was once an animal." Re: bunny...."

Books by Ron Koertge:

Other poems on the web by Ron Koertge:
"Flirting with Poetry"
"Fault"
“'Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?'"
Three poems
"Seven Brides For Seven Brothers"
"First Grade"

Ron Koertge's Website.

Ron Koertge on Twitter.

About The Ogre's Wife:

"Wit, the impeccably dressed and better educated sibling of funny, suffers an unstable reputation: clever yet aloof, socially polished but oddly cold. In the warmer, less formal surroundings of Ron Koertge's poems, however, wit lets down its guard and, behold: charm, intelligence, amazing inventiveness, and a kind of sweetness in its patient regard for a world so frequently bereft of those qualities. So what could be more welcome than a new Koertge collection, where wit presides, and wisdom elegantly clothed in laughter is always in attendance."
—?B.H. Fairchild

"It has been apparent from Ron's earliest published works--many of which long ago qualified as contemporary classics--that he was the most innately talented poet of his generation (mine too: I might call us the Second World War-Babies). No one has been more gifted at transferring to the page the wittiest, most concretely detailed, and most startlingly original conceits of a dazzlingly colloquial phalanx of post-Beat, pre-Boomer bards. With the years he has streamlined his style, with no sacrifice of brilliance. His prose narratives, teaching career, and graceful readings are similarly legendary. Had I the power to do so, I would (in a wink and with one) decorate him as the next Poet Laureate of these good ol' United States."
—?Gerald Locklin

"Blurb"
—Blurber