Book origins

Russell Ragsdale travels to Kazakhstan right after the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Within months of his arrival in an unusual place in Central Asia, he finds friendship in a struggling, Russian speaking world. The poet in him reawakens and he learns things about himself, both good and not so good, that change his life forever. Read Book of Aliases, a collection combining published and early poems written while living abroad. He also completed a chap book of new and original poetry written while living in Kazakhstan (2013) called Dragon Scales and Fireflies in which he explores his thoughts about safety and protecting oneself while living abroad as he now has for the last 21 years.

Who is Russell Ragsdale?

I am a plain old human being who happens to write poetry, don’t ask me how that happened. The main thing I really want in life is for people to read my poems and feel better. My experiences I share freely, even though I’m not a confessional poet and friends, who are also poets, tell me that my work is accessible so anybody should be able to read it. There is no need for advanced degrees or years of study of schools of poetry to understand what I’m writing about. I just write about life as it plays itself across my consciousness so that shouldn’t make anything too mysterious. If I go out drinking and dancing, I will write about it or, if I sit alone and feel the want of contact with others, I will write about that too. It is true that I don’t punctuate when I write so that might seem a little strange at first but people don’t punctuate when they speak either so, if you read the poems aloud it should start to make more sense. As a plus, reading them aloud will let you hear the somewhat jazzy music they make. I hope you will enjoy and feel good about the wonder of being alive and aware!

My books are:
Book of Aliases,
Dragon Scales and Fireflies