In this book you will find a diverse style and approach to poetry and prose writing that speaks of a lyrical lifetime experience not usually apparent in a premiere collection for a writer. Along with the experience, there is the craftsmanship of a songwriter, a modern bard of contemporary musicality. This book is an amble down the open road as well as the dark alley ways and then across a soft beach sand and on into vibrant sunsets that shine on contoured boulevards of dreams both broken and healing. 8th & Agony is a broad tapestry of wordsmithing that has been assembled here in an open parade of personal triumphs and pitfalls that coincide with the scope and vision of a writer who has tuned his work through the trials of performance in a way that has shared this experience with numerous audiences and now has been laid bare for the record here in these pages. Rich Ferguson is a well-heeled spoken word performer that brings a thespian musicianship to the stage along with a storied amount of influence and knowledge of the word, hence the diversity of style and content in this collection. This work is an exploration of poetic road mapping that convenes inside the travelogue of a life experience that touches on all the muses have to bring to bear in this world.