Released 28th February 2025 // 160 pages // 978-1-916938-81-6 // RRP: £14.99
Ricky Ray’s The Many-Mindedness of Spirit is a profound meditation on the enduring legacy of Brigit Pegeen Kelly, a poet whose work seamlessly weaves mythic imagination with unflinching emotional depth. Far from a mere homage, Ray’s exploration reveals the intricate interplay of nature, mortality, and the sublime that animates Kelly’s poetry. With luminous prose and sharp insight, he illuminates her rare gift for elevating the ordinary into the extraordinary, creating verses that both awaken and unsettle. More than a celebration, this is a timeless inquiry into the transformative power of art to shape perception and deepen our understanding of the human experience.
ABOUT Ricky Ray & Brigit Pegeen Kelly:
Brigit Pegeen Kelly (1951-2016) was a widely admired and influential American poet, known for her striking work and her haunting, mythic imagination. She was born in Palo Alto, California, grew up in southern Indiana, died in Urbana, Illinois, and had both an artist’s and a poet’s training. She authored three books of poetry, including To the Place of Trumpets, winner of the Yale Younger Poets Award; Song, winner of the Lamont Poetry Prize; and The Orchard, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She earned many of her country’s most prestigious accolades, including the Discovery/The Nation Poetry Prize, a Whiting Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Academy of American Poets. For decades, she served at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign as a professor of creative writing, and was deeply beloved by her students.
Ricky Ray is a poet, essayist and eco-mystic who lives with his wife and the ghost of his old brown dog in the old green hills of New England. He is the author of four books of poetry, including The Soul We Share, winner of the Aryamati Prize, and Quiet, Grit, Glory. He lectures on poetry, animism and integral ecology, and he serves on the advisory board of the Program for the Evolution of Spirituality at Harvard.
