Lee Ann Roripaugh, an associate professor of English at the University of South Dakota, is the author of Year of the Snake and Beyond Heart Mountain.

Other poems by Lee Ann Roripaugh in Verse Daily:
January 23, 2004:  "Hope" "There are nights I dream of goldfish..."

Books by Lee Ann Roripaugh:

Other poems on the web by Lee Ann Roripaugh:
Three poems
Five poems
"Things I Would Do for You"
Five poems
Two poems
"Happy Hour"

Lee Ann Roripaugh's Blog.

Lee Ann Roripaugh According to Wikipedia.

About On the Cusp of a Dangerous Year:

"The poems in Lee Ann Roripaugh’s intimate pillow book shimmer and glitter, blurring the line between text and image. . . . Moths, spiders, cats, clouds, gumballs, ladybugs and lovers are woven into a vibrant pattern that juxtaposes the delicious with the illicit, the still life with the quick silverfish, the imperious antennae of ants with the furred curve of a peach. . . . Desire, along with its many disguises and tricks, is the hard, fierce center of this gorgeous canticle to earthly love."
—Maura Stanton

"Lee Ann Roripaugh's poems create a true book of seeing. Her poems show us the way toward redemption as they fill these pages with a life of discovery and meaning."
—Ray Gonzalez

"On the Cusp of a Dangerous Year is an especially telling title for Lee Ann Roripaugh's masterful third collection; the poems again and again return to those transformative moments when acute lyric description gives way to a similarly acute self-appraisal; and where the poet's argument with the world gives way—momentarily, but always convincingly—to sensual astonishment."
—David Wojahn

"Lee Ann Roripaugh's On the Cusp of a Dangerous Year is a gorgeous, vibrant, and playful collection, filled with keen insights on everything from insect life to human chagrin to the measures of heartbreak. These poems delight and devastate with their incredible range of detail, their intensity, and their compassion."
—Bich Minh Nguyen