MY ODE to L.A.

Nicholas Ray’s rebel was famously without a cause. Nicca Ray’s rebel has one: to wake up from the recurring nightmare and change the narrative; to write her way out of the mausoleum; to walk resurrected, with ease on the streets below as well as the clouds above. — Ann Magnuson

In May 2019 Chris Desjardins came to a poetry reading hosted by my long time friend, Sara Glasser Havens . After I read, Chris D. smiled and said, “Those were dark.” “Yeah,” I answered. He said he was going to bring back his imprint, Poison Fang Books, after a six-year hiatus and asked if I’d be interested in publishing a collection of poetry. “That’d be great,” I said. He looked at me pensively, “You know, there’d be no money in it,” to which I cooly replied, “Oh yeah, well, of course.”

On December 4, 2020 Back Seat Baby, my first poetry collection will be available via Amazon.

“Some people write to simply, unpretentiously, tell stories. Perhaps they achieve that grace, perhaps they do not. You cannot push it like a brand new product for consumption. Intentionally trying to be a conduit for that grace, to force it and portray it as an aspirational thing—even a commodity—is the worst thing a writer can do. Because it kills its guileless spontaneity and purity of vision. Nicca does not have to ever worry about that. Her survival from childhood, her acceptance of unspeakable pain and her resulting grace has enabled her to achieve a transcendence of the all-too-ordinary monstrousness of every day life. She shows it in her poetry.” —Chris D.

Jesse McCloskey, whose drawings so perfectly fit with my poems, has been my lifelong partner since we were in our twenties and working at a restaurant on New York City’s infamous St. Marks Place. His artwork has appeared in magazines such as The Southern Review and Maintenant Dada Journal and on album covers for The Geraldine Fibbers and Evangelista. He is a New York Foundation of the Arts recipient, a Yaddo and Millay Colony alumni. He consistently shows in New York.

“Nicca Ray’s poetry shines through windows fly-specked with glory in Topanga Canyon with fresh icons of L.A. from the litter of star sidewalks. Rimbaud with blue hair. Clean sheets, sunny beach, ruffles with ridges, big wave Malibu. ‘If art is the devil’s work’ she has no fear of burning in hell. The High Noon of poetry.” — Charles Plymell (author of Apocalypse Rose and Last of the Moccasins)