James Ragan

James Ragan has lived in Paris, Prague, London, Athens and Beijing and has been honored here and abroad as an ambassador of poetry. In 1985 he was one of three Americans, along with Robert Bly and Bob Dylan, invited to perform at the First International Poetry Festival in Moscow. He is the recipient of numerous poetry honors and is the author of In the Talking Hours, Womb-Weary, The Hunger Wall and Lusions and is the coeditor of Yevgeny Yevtushenko: Collected Poems 1952-1990. His plays include Saints and Commedia, produced by Raymond Burr in America and Moscow. His poetry is also included in A Century of Recorded Poetry from Rhino Records. Ragan is the director of the Graduate Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California, and in 1996, Buzz magazine called him “one of the 100 coolest people in Los Angeles: Those who make a difference.”