Ray Ronci lives in Columbia, Missouri.

                         He says, "I've been asked: You're a poet and 
                       you're a Zen monk, does that mean you're a Zen poet? ...
                       The question itself seems ludricous....But...I guess
                       you could say whatever I do comes from the standpoint
                       of my practice.  So perhaps being a Zen anything means
                       being aware of the difference between small self and 
                       true self.
                         Here's a poem by Basho:

                          Pond,
                                frog,
                                      splash!

                         Some might say, 'Well, that's not poem."  So what?  What do
                       you gain by saying it is a poem or it isn't a poem....
                       If you can go where the poet was, that moment of pure, total
                       awareness, you know how profound it is to be sitting quietly
                       by a pond, looking at the water, when suddenly a frog leaps 
                       from nowhere and makes a splash!  There you go, into the unborn...
                       into the gates of heaven.
                         Special thanks to Tim Skeen, Brad Krieger, Lou Papineau, 
                       Hilda Raz, William Corbett; to the monks, nuns and 
                       practitioners at Mt. Baldy and Bodhi Manda, to the sangha 
                       of Hokoku-An, and, as always, to my family."

                       Several of these poems first appeared as a chapbook 
                       called "The World of Difference" (Pressed Wafer Press, 2001)


and also in the following periodicals --

"Balzac and the Buddha"                Greensboro Review

"My Skull"                             AGNI

"Cheap Shoes" and "Green Beans"        Rocky Mountain Review

"Snow" and "Homage to my Father"       Rattle

"You Can Stay, You Can Go" 
"Home on Business" 
"The Ones Who Stay" 
"Easter Sunday Morning" 
"Pure Hunger"                          Prairie Schooner

"Elegy For Laura"                      The New Review

"My Mother's Feet"                     North Dakota Quarterly

"The Sand In My Shoes"                 Providence Phoenix

"Nola's Banana Nut Bread"              Laurus

"Homage To Kanzan"                     Plainsongs

"Federal Hill RI"                      La Bella Figura

"The Hands"                            Iowa Review