Ron Ellison was a lumberjack, draft resister, student, bum, soldier, fisherman, and psychiatric nurse, and then, improbably, artist and writer. He lived in Seattle, and will be greatly missed by all of us at Chatwin. His posthumous collection of poetry is available here.

Illusions of Permanence is zen poetry comparable to that of David Whyte, Alan Watts, Paul Reps, and Gary Snyder. Audiences will appreciate its inspired openness and passionate sensuality.

“The first time I truly heard Ron Ellison speak, he was in a circle of people sharing their feelings after an evening of dance. He said, ‘This dance is keeping me alive. You are keeping me alive.’ He was speaking literally, not in metaphor. This scarred, craggy man, so ill he was short of breath, fought for air and went on to riff extemporaneously about some of his feelings from that evening, about being nearly dead, but finding life through movement and the energy of the people around him. It was poetry, coming from seemingly the most unlikely source. Poetry--live, in the moment, and very real. He was composing impromptu, off the cuff—and was later asked by those present to write them down. Thus many of the poems in this volume, which came from similar spontaneous instances, truly embody the oral tradition of poetry.”

-Phil Bevis, Chatwin Books publisher and editor