Ron Riekki was born in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (U.P.). He is a graduate of the Brandeis University theater program (playwriting), the University of Virginia creative writing program (fiction), and the Western Michigan University creative writing Ph.D. program (literature & creative writing). He’s also the author of the novel U.P. (Ghost Road Press, 2008). In May 2013, Wayne State University Press published the anthology The Way North: Collected Upper Peninsula New Works, edited by Ron Riekki and featuring new writing by Vincent Reusch, April Lindala, Andrea Scarpino, Janeen Rastall, Amber Edmondson, Marty Achatz, Sue Harrison, and 36 other talented U.P. authors, http://wsupress.wayne.edu/. The book was selected by the Library of Michigan as a 2014 Michigan Notable Book. Riekki’s writing has appeared in previous issues of Loch Raven Review.
Winter 2012
Table of Contents - Vol. VIII, No. 4
Poetry Translations Fiction Non-fiction Reviews
Ron Riekki
It’s raining dogs, no cats. Gou rain,
where the sky refuses to smile
for days, and nights. Heavenless.
Shadowed near invisible, just able
to make out the thirty-two stories,
the winter monster of a building
that hovers in front of me. The river
of night. Every channel on CCTV
plays one song—La vie en rose
played on bamboo pipes, bird sounds
woven in. Outside, the occasional cricket
of car horns. And a happily-ever-after scream.
© Ron Riekki
