A Perfect Orbit Out Now

I am happy to announce that I just launched my first book of poetry on Amazon. It’s a very personal collection, spanning many years and many memories. The book description …

Jakob Ryce’s first book of poetry is a collection divided into two sections, Virtue and Falling. There are moments of childlike innocence, growth and joy, and the other unavoidable side of the coin – loss, pain and mortality. A Perfect Orbit takes readers on a bitter-sweet human journey that is both heart wrenching and life-affirming.

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I am very proud of this little collection. I’ve reached deep into my soul and unearthed some dark and painful experiences, as well as some tender snapshots of young adulthood and childhood innocence. This life is not a simple stretch of progress, success, or failure—it’s a complex series of events for each person. With every downfall there is a flip side; a moment of efficacious joy: “Ripe mandarins, cheap wine, and brisk, catnaps in the long grass.” Life really is the yin and yang that Chinese philosophers once wrote about – how opposite or contrary forces can often be interconnected and complementary with each other. Out of chaos comes order, out of love comes loss, out of life comes death, and on the cycle repeats in a perfect orbit. Even the planets and stars experience stellar births and atomic deaths over eons. Or take the Buddhist belief of Samsara, the cycle of existence and endless rebirth; a wheel of dharma that covers six realms of existence.

Before self publishing this poetry book a friend told me the second half of the book, Falling, was too dark and depressing. I actually accepted this feedback as a compliment because that meant the poems were speaking their truths. Life is not always a bed of roses and we cannot pretend that loss, death, or suffering doesn’t exist. They may not be pleasant realities to face, but life is not designed to be pleasant; life is simply a cycle, and each cycle is different for everyone.

I dedicated this collection of poems to my late father who died in 2014. He was actually my stepfather but was the closest thing to a father I ever had, and he brought some light back into our lives after my first stepfather took so much of it from us. One experience should not outweigh the other – that’s the point of this collection, to remember that all our experiences make us who we are – the positive and the negative – for the human condition is a multifaceted one. I hope readers can experience these poems as exactly that: a journey from innocence and virtue to our downfalls and loss, and all that we learn in between.

You can purchase the Kindle version of the book here. The paperback version will be available soon as print on demand.

Thank you again for your kind support.

J.R.