Photo by Jinn Bug
Words by Hunter
“I have long admired Ron Whitehead. He is crazy as nine loons, and his poetry is a dazzling mix of folk wisdom and pure mathematics.”
—Hunter S. Thompson
“Ron Whitehead is a real visionary. Ron Whitehead, out there in Kentucky, is sowing the dragon’s teeth of a new heroics. Ron Whitehead is Bodhisattva in Kentucky.”
—Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Poet, writer, editor, publisher, professor, scholar, activist, U.S. National Lifetime Beat Poet Laureate Ron Whitehead, who grew up on a farm in Kentucky, is the author of over 30 books and more than 40 albums.
A UNESCO Europe Writer-in-Residence, his work has been translated into 20 languages. Winner of the Kentucky Poetry Society’s World Peace Prize for Poetry (Judge Lisel Mueller), the Kentucky Poetry Prize, the Yeats Club of Oxford’s Prize for Poetry, the City of Louisville presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in The Arts, and many other awards and honors, including being nominated for the Pulitzer and the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Ron’s poetry has been published around the world in a diverse range of print and online publications from TRIQUARTERLY (Northwestern University/Illinois) to ARTFORUM (Czech Republic) to BLUE BEAT JACKET (Japan) to BEAT SCENE (England) to SOUTHERN REVIEW (Louisiana) to TRIBE magazine (NYC) to AMERICANS & OTHERS (Italy), and thousands of others.
He produced thousands of music and poetry events, festivals, and Insomniacathons across Europe and the USA. Although he recently retired from producing events, at 74, he continues to perform and record with his Storm Generation Band and many others.
His new book, TAPPING MY OWN PHONE, was released, September 2024, by the National & International Beat Poetry Foundation. His new album, THE WAY of THE HEART: OLD AGE SUITE was just released by sonaBLAST! Records.
He just returned from Newfoundland where he was the first Writer-in-Residence for the historic Woody Point Heritage Theatre’s Sonic Harvest Sessions. A new video, filmed in Newfoundland, will be released February 2025.
His new book CROW and OUTLAW was released January 18, 2025 by Keeping the Flame Alive Press. A new Published in Heaven Poster of his “A Poet’s Path” poem was released on the same day. A new music spoken word video of A PRAYER for AMERICA/This Land is Your Land by Ron Whitehead (with Woody Guthrie) & The Storm Generation Band will be released by sonaBLAST! Records in February 2025.
He will Feature at PoetFest in April 2025 at historic Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida.
He will present The Keynote State of Gonzo Address at GonzoFest New Orleans in May 2025, where he will also perform with legendary composer and multi-instrumentalist David Amram plus with the band ZU ZU YA YA.
OUTLAW POET: The Legend of Ron Whitehead, a feature length documentary on Ron’s life and work, is now available for streaming on Amazon Prime Films Documentaries.
“Ron Whitehead, the only begettor of all this, is here for good!”
—Seamus Heaney
“Of all America’s living poets – and I mean all of them, even the academic lauded boring ones – Ron Whitehead has the STRONGEST most PERSISTENT most POWERFUL VOICE of them all. You can hear his voice in every line, every word. It is the voice of Blake and the voice of Yeats; it is the voice of Kerouac and the voice of Ginsberg. It is the rolling thunder of Bob Dylan. It is the voice of THE POET.”
—Dr. John Rocco
“God used a golden eagle to bring the prophet Elijah to heaven. For a while it has seemed to me that he used the same wagon to send us Ron Whitehead but what do you know, here is a book that proves he came into this world from a Mother’s womb. Ron Whitehead has written another masterpiece.”
—Olafur Gunnarsson
“Ron Whitehead is a living legend, a man who is his dream. An uplifting and inspiring outlaw poet who never looks up or down to anyone, but in the eyes – with courage, compassion and dignity. The Great Blue Heron of Quasar Poetry is a real treasure box.”
—Doris Kareva
“Ron Whitehead is already acknowledged by many of his Elders to be a Major Literary Figure and the epitome of the work ethic! Ron and I have collaborated, recorded and performed at major festivals and universities all over the USA and Europe. Ron Whitehead is an extraordinary motivator who inspires young people to pursue the highest standards, to work tirelessly and to celebrate the intellect by constant study of Classic Literature while remaining Creative. Ron Whitehead is one of the great lyric poets of our time. His precious Kentucky roots fill our hearts. The first time I heard Ron Whitehead read I felt what I imagine those who heard Abraham Lincoln deliver The Gettysburg Address felt. I continue to learn from him.”
—David Amram
“Ron Whitehead is one of the most exciting poets in America. Poet and literary activist, he is one of the great poets of his generation.”
—Douglas Brinkley
“Ron Whitehead is a prophet. He is one of the world’s greatest poet prophets. What an inspiring honor to hear him read here at Granada Nicaragua’s International Poetry Festival!”
—Yevgeny Yevtushenko
“Ron Whitehead, His Holiness The Dalai Lama thanks you and offers his blessing and permission for you to create a poster of his message to you which you have written in the form of a poem. I would like to express my personal appreciation to you. Your poem of His Holiness’s message is extremely powerful and moving. I am confident that it will inspire many.”
—Tenzin Geyche Tethong, Secretary to His Holiness The Dalai Lama
“It is rare to receive a large book and be so captivated from the first to the last page that you just can’t put it down. It’s hard to believe that in this Era, you can read the work of a living poet where every poem tells you a story which makes you want to read each poem again. Ron Whitehead’s new book, CROW and OUTLAW does that. Taking what would be considered to be everyday experiences for anyone who celebrates their Southern country roots, this book shows us the Beauty Part of family bonds, unconditional love, struggles of survival and the joy of facing life head on and making every challenge a new adventure. Ron Whitehead makes us feel that his journey is ours as well. Like Cervantes’ descriptions of Spanish life in his classic DON QUIXOTE Ron Whitehead’s CROW and OUTLAW invites us all into a world we have never visited and makes us feel at home. Poets throughout history have enabled us to feel as if they have guided us to places we have never visited and shared emotions we have felt but never have dared to share with others. Ron Whitehead’s new book is part of this great tradition. He is our tour guide to his life and makes us feel as if we are part of it. The Navajo Prayer of the 12th Night tells us of the Trail of Beauty which has always been here and that if we walk it, Beauty surrounds us. Ron Whitehead’s CROW and OUTLAW takes us all on that trail. It celebrates the sanctity of the Now, the preciousness of the gift of life and the hidden beauties of what we deem as Ordinary but which is actually Extraordinary when we read this book!”
—David Amram
“I blink as I read. Did I catch that, it went by so fast? More compactly almost than you can imagine, intensity pouring off the page, Crow never says what you already know. With Intensity pouring off each page, Crow never says what you already know. Crow never bores—but speaks to us from the author’s shoulder, where she first perched when her body died—shot by Ron’s father. Whitehead reaches an acme in his already prestigious poetic revelations. An astonishing journey for the reader. Short, digestible, each a gift, these poems roam into the vast territory of Ron Whitehead’s life, minutely observed. “A poet-prophet,” “a major literary figure,” “a genius,” “birthed in the whirlwind chariot of Elijah,” as critics have said—he shows himself to be all of these in this one book.”
—Margaret A. Harrell
“Ron Whitehead is a poetry phenom. He is an outlaw to misery and hate, a master of love and life, and a great storyteller. He is a walking poetry storyteller. In his new book, CROW and OUTLAW, Ron reaches the highest level of poetic art—poetry real, magical, mystical and stunningly powerful, full of allusion, full of life’s great passions and amazements, all which make heart and mind dance a wonder dance.”
—Lee Pennington
“Closing time is near. Ron Whitehead knows his time here is limited and that the end of every journey is the heart. No identity is fixed or static, everything and everybody is constantly evolving, shaping and reshaping, forming and reforming. And so it is with Ron Whitehead. He shows us that there are few straight lines or unbreakable rules while encouraging us to stay excited about the gifts and serendipitous lessons to be found along the way. Ron draws, in turns, from Western and Eastern philosophers, contemporary and classical literature, friendships and personal conflagrations, rock and roll, coal mines and the wilderness of his native Kentucky. If these, indeed, are the opening days of ‘The New Dark Ages’, Whitehead is there for us and with us, even beyond the created confines of time. His poetry has been lived, has been felt, has been gifted by the wind and returned to the waysides of a thousand inward and outbound travels. It is always real, never contrived in form or filling. Crow & Outlaw is a collection of latter-day sutras by one of North America’s own mad master-monks of poetry, Ron Whitehead.”
—PW Covington
“Ron Whitehead has one foot in the ancient Kentucky backwoods, and one foot on the surface of Mars. Part Davey Crockett, part Edgar Cayce, part Carl Sagan, part Johnny Appleseed. 100 years from now young poets will be reading and quoting him as we do the giants of yesteryear. Whitehead continues to share his personal metaphysical experience and translate it into powerful universal knowledge and wisdom. Crow and Outlaw, Guru and Shishya, Ron Whitehead has spent a lifetime clothed in brilliant regalia. In this current volume, as always, he wears it well.”
—Joe Kidd
“Crow is a trickster. Tricksters, by nature, are outlaws who use creativity to defy social norms, to create the mythology of the present. As Ron says, “The song of the world is change.” Crow and Outlaw is a book about the power of the imagination, the power of the journey – both physical and spiritual – the power of the individual standing just outside of society: listening, recording, creating. Ron, as outlaw, crow, and shaman, encourages the next generation to speak, to keep the sacred flame burning.”
—Kent Fielding