• Once Upon a Time in Byzantium (2008)
  Byzantium: the word itself denotes a period of chicanery, treachery and willful duplicity. Thus this novel begins with a conundrum that foretells the intricacies the reader will encounter as the plot unfolds.
  
  "Richard Unger is dead," the story begins. "gone for twenty-eight years. Murdered in 1974." (An excerpt from Richard Unger's diary, entered February 10, 2001.) Herein, these words tell you everything and yet nothing. And so the story unfolds in an aura of mystery.
  
  From the beginning Richard Unger makes it clear he is writing of these events under extreme pressure. He prays those who read this material, after examining the facts, might grant some sort of absolution. But that is for the reader to decide.
  
  Richard and Mary Nell have, the last twenty-eight years, been leading a privileged life in Dallas, Texas enjoying the fruits of lucrative careers. Their tranquility is shattered when they receive an anonymous note taunting them with information which proves the correspondent knows they are living under false pretences. The missive concludes he possesses knowledge they are responsible for the death of the writer's soul-mate in 1974. Now it is their time to be destroyed.
  
  The author's memoir is based on events from the distant past which now are destined to spin out of control. He sums it up when he writes: "Whenever I think of the past I try to rearrange the facts in some sort of logical manner. However events can only be changed at the point of origin. If then. If ever." Thus, Richard and Mary Nell find themselves caught in a net of mystery and subterfuge where they are about to enter a bizarre world of their own making.

• Voices From a Darkened Room (2007)

• A History of My Tattoo (2006) --- Winner, 2006 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men's Poetry; Nominated Thom Gunn Award in Gay Poetry
  From the rock-n-rollin 60s and disco 70s into the closing moments of the twentieth century, A History of My Tattoo unflinchingly traces one man s experiences with the two greatest tragedies of recent U.S. history: the defeat of U.S. forces in Vietnam and the plague of HIV/AIDS.
  
  A History of My Tattoo is a book-length poem in ten parts that investigates the two major American tragedies of the late twentieth century--the defeat of U.S. forces in Vietnam and the plague of AIDS/HIV as witnessed by the volume s narrator. Its surrealistic terrain includes the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall and the AIDS Memorial Quilt, is peopled by drag queens, soldiers, the homeless, and the narrator who has just been released from a psychiatric ward in an undisclosed city, and is haunted by the bells of a cathedral ringing in not just the new year but the new the twenty-first century.

• To Go With Rage (2005)
  In this sequel to Elledge’s novel To Go Forth in the Midst of Wolves, journalist Margo Winters, former priest Joseph Casey, and their protégé, Joaquin Petain, are reunited in a struggle for justice. Long-smoldering resentments between the affluent Anglo establishment and Casey’s Casa Esperanza, a commune providing refuge for the disenchanted Mexican population, erupt into violence along the Texas Rio Grande as the inherent prejudices in vogue in this 1945 time frame, coupled with an ever-increasing communist hysteria, produce a drama punctuated by murder and a political system that has lost its moral bearings. A labor stoppage reflecting the importance of Chicano power leads to violence that each of the protagonists has to confront on his or her own terms. This is a story of survival, not only in the physical sense, but one of retribution of the soul directed toward a startling climax filled with spiritual rejuvenation.

• To Go Forth in the Midst of Wolves (2004)
  In 1940 Colorado three strangers, drawn together by Fate, find themselves in a desperate struggle for survival on a frozen mountainside. An alcoholic priest hiding the shame of secret passions, a Basque shepherd boy seeking retribution for his negligence, and a woman journalist whose brazenness has destroyed her marriage are being torn apart by forces they no longer control. In their battle for redemption they are consumed by memories from the past. Their stories are painted with the broad brush of historical background covering the Irish “Troubles” of the ‘20’s, the tragic drama of the Spanish Civil War, and the rise of Nazi Socialism in the early ‘30’s. The plot involves the best and worst in relationships, dealing with life as it is. The collective adventures add to a montage of all the aspects of this fateful encounter, conveying the theme of failure, deliverance, and the miracle of human survival.

• Masquerade: Queer Poetry in America to the End of World War II (2004)
  Masquerade is the most comprehensive anthology yet published of poetry by American gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered persons. It includes representative poems from more than 100 writers from pre-colonial times to the end of the Second World War. The anthology begins with selections of anonymous texts from the oral traditions of Hawaii and Native America, followed by voodoo chants and cowboy songs (with a few limericks thrown in for good measure). The selections are arranged by the year of the poet's birth and include samplings of poetry by a racially and ethnically diverse group of men and women. Contemporary readers will know the work of some of these poets, such as Gertrude Stein and Walt Whitman. Other poets, such as George Santayana and Adah Isaacs Menken, will be strangers to most. In all, these poets created a rich heritage of verse that has been for the most part masked throughout the history of American literature.

• Student's Guide to Getting Published  (2002) by Susan Swartwout and Jim Elledge

• Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Myths from the Arapaho to the Zuni: An Anthology (American Indian Studies, V. 13) (2002)

• Real Things: An Anthology of Popular Culture in American Poetry (1999), edited with Susan Swartwout
  In the past few decades, poetry about and around popular culture has become a very hip contemporary art form. Real Things is a collection of over 150 poems by more than 130 poets who themselves represent the cultural diversity of the United States. With subjects ranging from the influence of Mickey Mouse on child-raising to the relationship of Barbie to sex in America, from the societal effects of the movie Psycho to our fascination with dirty politics and Ralph Kramden, the poems in this anthology question and celebrate the attitudes that our society shares.

• Into the Arms of the Universe (1995)

• Earth As It Is (1994)
  The poems in this collection celebrate our planet and its population from a variety of perspectives.

• Sweet Nothings: An Anthology of Rock and Roll in American Poetry (1994)


No one should be surprised that rock and roll music turns up in the work of many of the Baby-Boom poets, where it conjures up poignant memories, evokes a specific mood, or haunts the poets' psychic landscape. Arranged in a loosely thematic manner, the 125 poems in Sweet Nothings mirror the varied forms of rock and roll, mimic its sounds, bask in its innocence, draw inspiration from its rebelliousness. For this collection Jim Elledge has gathered works by 79 poets, among them some of the most highly regarded poets of our time: Frank O'Hara, Joyce Carol Oates, David Wojahn, Thom Gunn, Rita Dove, Lynda Hull, Albert Goldbarth, Lisel Mueller, Yusef Komunyakaa, Gary Soto, William Matthews. In the final section of the book the poets comment on the relationship between their works and rock and roll.

• Standing "between the dead and the living": The elegiac technique of Wilfred Owen's war poems (1992)

• Frank O'Hara: To Be True to a City (1990)


See also Frank O'Hara.

• Various Envies: Poems (1989)

• Weldon Kees: A Critical Introduction (1986)

• Homemade (1985)

• James Dickey: A Bibliography, 1947-1974 (Author Bibliographies Series No.40) (1979)

Other

• The Spoon River Poetry Review (Vol XXII, No. 1) (1997) Jim Elledge, ed.
  Includes a special section, "A Long Way Into This Light:" Poems by Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Gays.
   

See also:

• Biography - Jim Elledge (2007)
  An article from: Contemporary Authors Online by Gale Reference Team, Digital -- HTML