Charles Rafferty works in masks, voices, and personae. Winner of the fifth annual Arkansas Poetry Award, The Man on the Tower consists of dramatic monologues and fables about the man - the many incarnations of our lives that are not allowed, cannot be lived, or are kept darkly hidden. Made believable in the lines of Rafferty's poems, his characters show us their desires, complaints, and obsessions, often revealing what they would want to keep concealed, the shameful and the wild.

In exploring the insane, heroic venturesomeness of the many incarnations of "the man," Rafferty cuts to the heart of the difficulties of modern urban life.

Charles Rafferty works in miniatures. These short short stories explore the small disasters of desire. They investigate the problems that ensue when, inevitably, his characters get what they wish for and what they deserve.

"In the world made by Charles Rafferty's poems, men travel with hawks in their suitcases, clouds of bees disrupt wedding receptions. Rafferty sees through "the concussed air of streetlamp, mall and interchange" to the small wild heart fluttering in the center of our mostly-tamed lives. But in these poems where "a bracelet of barbed wire, a pendant of living bees" might be decorations lies a love for all the risk and beauty of being human. Charles Rafferty is a poet of vision and imagination, and The Unleashable Dog is a mature and beautiful collection." -- Al Maginnes (from the back cover)