Robert Ostrom is the author of The Youngest Butcher in Illinois (2012). He teaches at New York City College of Technology and Columbia University, and lives in Ridgewood, New York.

Books by Robert Ostrom:

Other poems on the web by Robert Ostrom:
Two poems
"To His Nephew"
"Portrait of a Tyrant"
"The Driver Says"
"Introduction to What You Are About to Read"
Three poems
Three poems

About Ritual and Bit:

"'Trust me, says what you are about to read to yourbeautiful ear.' And I do, I trust these quiet poems of deep loss as they spiraltheir way in and hold my attention, as they meander the strange stream of theirown making, and arrive at that wonderful old unnameable place, poetry's heart."
—Mary Ruefle

"You're there immediately: nirvana, crystal lucidity, light, joy, it catches you, ozone. It is as if you're walking in thewoods and find a spring, almost invisible, almost unnoticeable, and you sensethe water there is the beginning of the world that once was the entire Nile. How is it possible that some words carry this strange authority of the future? Because they found a new access to memory? You're thrilled, they lead you, the sense you're after a big discovery doesn't leave you."
—Tomaz Salamun

"Robert Ostrom's poems arise--indeed, they could not have arisen otherwise--from an unwavering commitment not only to seeing the world, but also to the possibilities inherent in, and the ramifications of, seeing the world. Every seen thing must be invented by the seer if it is to be interacted with in any way other than instinctively. However, just as we are not often aware that we are re-constructing our memories every time we remembersomething, so also are we not often aware of this process. Ostrom writes from an awareness of the process--"And like that / we will be leaves. And like that, there were trees."--and his poems live, because they are at every moment making."
—Shane McCrae