Pandora's Kitchen

<p><strong>NATIONALLY-HONORED POET • POET LAUREATE OF SOUTH PASADENA, CALIFORNIA • PUSHCART PRIZE WINNER • Ron Koertge explores human fragility throughout history in his poetry collection, </strong><strong><em>PANDORA’S KITCHEN<br><br></em></strong><strong>“Moral certainties and stereotypes vanish in these sly/subversive, satiric/tender, achingly funny/humane poems.</strong><strong><em>”–Amy Gerstler</em></strong><strong> • “They are poetry at its best, causing his readers to laugh, think, and feel anew.</strong><strong><em>”–Billy Collins, former US poet laureate. <br><br></em></strong><strong>The subjects in Ron Koertge’s poems include Hades’ unhappy wife Persephone, Nancy Drew, and Dracula’s Wives.<br><br></strong>The subjects in Ron Koertge’s poems include Hades’ unhappy wife Persephone, Nancy Drew, and Dracula’s Wives. He has located Jane Austen at the mall, comforted the sun itself, and celebrated a winning day at the races. In an early poem, he extols his chosen vocation by saying this: “It’s so great to be a poet. I’m basically self-employed with nobody to please but myself.” Yet pleasing his many fans is at the top of his Things-To-Do list. That is why poets from Billy Collins to B. H. Fairchild have called his poems masterful, quirky, deliciously sly, inventive and surprisingly sweet.</p>