Poems from sonnets to free verse focus on pleasures and problems in ranch life and in west Texas, which include variations differing for generations returning to the ranch, and those family members who leave the ranch for city life.CORMORANTS’ JOURNEYSnowbirds come diving down, sliding incarelessly splatting,pecking on windows, doors,building nests, dropping threads,shards of old nests hanging on their beaks,claws. Their fluttering white fe...

It should come as no surprise that poets are often exceptionally fine cooks, savoring food the way they savor words and at the same time recognizing that just as a gathering of words does not necessarily mean a good poem, neither does a mixture of ingredients necessarily mean a good recipe. In Cooking with the Texas Poets Laureate, the editors, all members of Dr. Paul Ruffin’s 2014 graduate Editing/Publishing class, solicited recipes and food-related poetry and prose from Texas Po...