Tracy Ross - Books

Relics & Rituals (Shanti Arts Books) is a journey through the possibilities of experience and the mind's potential as an uncharted frontier. Each poem, whether it be with the broad strokes of allegory immersed in personal quest, or small epiphanies in slice of life portrayals, her treatment of the human condition is left as an open question that begs examination and transforms the ordinary with leaps of intuitive exploration. Ultimately, Relics & Rituals, like much of Ross's work, touches on the psychological implications of humanity at large and uses the lens of verse and metaphor to illuminate the conditions we experience as a collective.

We carry physical artifacts as evidence of our existence to mark our presence in time's continuum. We use habits of behavior and the rituals of daily life embedded in the passages of time to somehow help us cope with impermanence. But time goes forward...and the writer types faster...only leaving ellipses on the page...

"Relics & Rituals celebrates the habits of mind and the passages of time with dark imagination and striking imagery, paying homage to human perseverance, triumph, and courage." --Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and the author of The Language Instinct and The Sense of Style

Purchase here!

Purchase Here:

Purchase:

"The poems in Broken Signals by Tracy Ross are about our contemporary failure to communicate as well as our inability to receive messages sent to us everyday from the universe. Ross is unrelenting in her quest both to understand and be understood by the universe. These are deeply personal poems, and many have serious social and political implications, following the great tradition of the Beat poets."

—Cary Waterman, author of

Threshold: New and Selected Poems

Broken Signals--Trials of Disconnect (Shanti Arts Books, 2018)

Poetry Collection
Broken Signals (Trials of Disconnect)
"Broken Signals" is the telling of the new 21st century paradigm in verse form, celebrating humanity and exploring the influences of technology.

Books

Purchase Here: When Lightning Strikes

Nikola Tesla haunts the pages of this compelling book like a patron saint of genius and "the unsung." The poems relate loneliness despite being surrounded by screens, feeling lost despite GPS in one's hand, frustrations with corporations and capitalism, and despair over environmental degradation. Through all, there is hope. There is light. There are wings.
--Janna Knittel, author of Real Work and Fish & Wild Life

Now Available:

When Lightning Strikes (Nikola's Dove)
(Shanti Arts Books)

When inspiration strikes, we find ourselves in creation, losing the chains of inhibition, hoping others share in the vision. Yet, the moment when the lightning strikes, its beauty can be brutal in its brilliance, leaving scars and our former selves to wander through the carnage of our lives.

When Lightning Strikes tells the story of inspiration, innovation, and despair. It fuses both the work of Nikola Tesla with a poet's striking vision of her own neurodivergence and the potentials of a better world.

Binary Logic

(Liminal Books/Between the Lines Publishing)

November 2022

Binary Logic (Liminal Books) is a collection of short stories that bends genres with style and grace. Everything becomes binary. Positives and negatives separate our decisions, ultimately creating the conflicts inherent in free will.

"Imaginative and gritty, the short stories in Binary Logic wrestle with dreams and 'monsters, those little funny creatures who beg you to do the reckoning.' Haunted by their own histories, Tracy Ross's narrators give it to us straight. The rhythm and buzz of a flashing neon sign illuminates their seedy cityscapes and dystopian worlds as they impart their hard-won logic. This 360 degree view of the world is gripping, outspoken, and prescient."

—James Cihlar, author of The Shadowgraph

"Step into the light with Tracy Ross. You won't regret the journey. In stories that explore addiction and longing, fear and love, failure and surrender, she shows us the truth in our delusions and the delusion in our truths. Well worth the read!"

--Stephan Eirik Clark, author of Sweetness #9 and Vladimir's Mustache

Binary Logic is a journey of perseverance in all its quixiotic glory. We are transported to a questioning universe where the lines of genre, form, and meaning blur.

Purchase here!

James Dean and The Beautiful Machine

The room moans,
Gregorian chants
of electricity through wires—
microwaves and mixers,
the heavy hum of the fridge,
the clank of your fork against cheap plates,
the echoes of your voice hitting
tiled interiors like an idiot song,
familiar sounds of being in a coma.

Your sacrifice over coffee
is a ritual from whence I cannot escape.
The evening dinners simmer
a low hanging ceiling of expectation
in meatloaf and potatoes,
along with the evening news,
and a nighttime vodka and tonic...

"She, The American Kitchen" (p. 26)

Purchase Here:

James Dean and The Beautiful Machine by Tracy Ross (Shanti Arts Publishing, 2020)