Head Full of Boogeymen / Belly Full of Snakes

Jason Ryberg writes true. There is no falseness in his poetry, and that's about as big of a compliment as I can give. In this collection, you'll find excellent poem after excellent poem. Street poet? Working class poet? Ryberg is all of these and more. His words sing and howl. They are accessible in the best possible way. I'm delighted to see so much of his work together in one book. Don't pass this one up.

-Daniel Crocker, Leadwood

Dashiell Hammett, Hedy Lamar, and a dragonfly, enter a dimly lit saloon Benoit Mandelbrot is behind the bar and Tom Waits is on the juke, literally. If they are in Kansas or Missouri it's too late to turn back you are in a Jason Ryberg poem. Part ghost story, part farmer's almanac entry, all riverbank reeds and cautionary tale made myth. Ryberg's poems reek with Bo Diddley envy and the mud of a well-grounded poem mixed in a mad scientist's autoclave. In short, Dear Reader, wait for the moon and the ice cubes to crack, open a book and so will you.

- Paul Koniecki

author of After Working Hours (NightBallet Press 2017)



Jason Ryberg's full-scale poetry collection sprawls across pages so comfortably you may forget you are reading. The poet's voice is so natural that his conversational comments, mostly iambic, connect and expand like a well-aged, single malt scotch. Enjoy.

-Denise Low, 2007-2009 Kansas Poet Laureate



Jason Ryberg's poetry is an aperture into what punk rock country, old blues bookstores and jazz back roads becomes under the skillful strumming of a man who knows how to listen to the heron and the hero both. His work walks through existential dread and into laughing amazement without ever leaving the reader behind. Ryberg is the essential Kansas poet: he takes the flat plains of the page and blasts tornadoes, heartbreak, thunderstorms, and true stories across the big open empty until we are all filled with the rush of the view through the rear-view mirror.



-Jeanette Powers, Stubborn Mule Press