The Unleashable Dog - Softcover

"In the world made by Charles Rafferty's poems, men travel with hawks in their suitcases, clouds of bees disrupt wedding receptions. Rafferty sees through "the concussed air of streetlamp, mall and interchange" to the small wild heart fluttering in the center of our mostly-tamed lives. But in these poems where "a bracelet of barbed wire, a pendant of living bees" might be decorations lies a love for all the risk and beauty of being human. Charles Rafferty is a poet of vision and imagination, and The Unleashable Dog is a mature and beautiful collection." -- Al Maginnes (from the back cover)

Charles Rafferty received a 2009 NEA Fellowship in Creative Writing, as well as a grant from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism. He is the also the author of four full-length collections of poetry: The Man on the Tower (which won the Arkansas Poetry Award, University of Arkansas Press, 1995), Where the Glories of April Lead (Mitki/Mitki Press, 2001), During the Beauty Shortage (M2 Press, 2005), and A Less Fabulous Infinity (Louisiana Literature Press, 2006). He has placed poems The Southern Review, Measure, TriQuarterly, Quarterly West, Massachusetts Review, Phoebe: The George Mason Review, DoubleTake, Poems & Plays, and Louisiana Literature.