Ordinary Words is the luminous, wild, and lyrical collection of poetry that brought Ruth Stone the critical acclaim she long deserved with the National Book Critics Circle Award, and it paved the way to the National Book Award and long-deserved critical attention. Ordinary Words captures a unique vision of Americana, marked by Stone's characteristic wit, poignancy, and lyricism. The poet addresses the environment, poverty, and aging with fearless candor and surprising humor. Sister poet to Nobel Prize-winner Wislawa Syzmborska, Ruth Stone offers a view of her country and its citizens that is tender humorous, and filled with hard political truths as well as love, beauty, cruelty, and sorrow. Ruth Stone is a poet of the people, and poet's poet. Ordinary Words shows that poetry is about everyday life, our life. Poems are set in Rutland, Vermont; Indianapolis; Chattanooga; Houston; Boise; and Troy, New York (where celluloid collars were made). Stone's subjects are trailer parks, state parks, prefab houses, school crossing guards, bears, snakes, hummingbirds, bottled water, Aunt Maud, Uncle Cal, lost love, dry humping at the Greyhound bus terminal, and McDonalds as a refuge from loneliness. Her heroes are dead husbands, wild grandmothers, struggling daughters: ordinary Americans leading simple and extraordinary lives.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
"You think it horrible that lust and rage / Should dance attention upon my old age," wrote W.B. Yeats in one of his many, memorable testimonies on behalf of eternal youth. At 85, Ruth Stone has refrained (as far as I know) from the sort of chemical fixes and elixirs that intrigued her Irish predecessor. But she too has remained open to eros and anger, despair and delight, and steadfastly avoided the sort of golden-hued nostalgia that has ruined many an older poet.
Ordinary Words, which won the 1999 National Book Critics Circle Award, is an excellent specimen of Stone's art. She has a superb eye for landscape, noting both the beauty of the natural world and the dispiriting thumbprints that human beings leave behind: "As now, another snowfall / sculptures an unreality, clean and fresh, / bringing down in its light crystals / industrial particulates as it settles." This note of ecological protest, here subsumed in Latinate playfulness, can sometimes mar Stone's poetry, and the same thing might be said of her mini-manifesto against consumer culture, "Incredible Buys In." She's much stronger when delving less deliberately into what she calls "that vast / confused library, the female mind." Over and over she emerges with astonishing prizes, from the dizzy imagery of "Prefab" to the stirring snapshot of bereavement in "Then":
In our loss we accepted the strange shape of thingsDespite the damp fizzle of the final line, this gets right to the heart of our sorrowing, queasy communion with the dead. And it confirms that when Ruth Stone hits her stride, as she often does throughout this collection, the words that she deploys with such low-key panache are anything but ordinary. --James Marcus
as though it had meaning for us,
as though we moved slowly over the acreage,
as though the ground modulated like water.
The floors and the cupboards slanted to the West,
the house sinking toward the evening side of the sky.
The children and I sitting together waiting,
there on the back porch, the massive engine
of the storm swelling up through the undergrowth,
pounding toward us.
Ruth Stone is the author of nine books of poetry, for which she has received the National Book Award, the Wallace Stevens Award, a National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Shelley Memorial Award. She taught creative writing at many universities, finally settling at SUNY Binghamton. She lives in Vermont.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
FREE
Within U.S.A.
Shipping:
US$ 3.25
Within U.S.A.
Seller: ThriftBooks-Dallas, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
Paperback. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.2. Seller Inventory # G0963818384I3N00
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Books Unplugged, Amherst, NY, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. Buy with confidence! Book is in good condition with minor wear to the pages, binding, and minor marks within 0.37. Seller Inventory # bk0963818384xvz189zvxgdd
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Roundabout Books, Greenfield, MA, U.S.A.
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Condition Notes: Clean, unmarked copy with some edge wear. Good binding. Dust jacket included if issued with one. We ship in recyclable American-made mailers. 100% money-back guarantee on all orders. Seller Inventory # 1636984
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Midtown Scholar Bookstore, Harrisburg, PA, U.S.A.
paperback. Condition: Good. Good - Bumped and creased book with tears to the extremities, but not affecting the text block, may have remainder mark or previous owner's name - GOOD PAPERBACK Standard-sized. Seller Inventory # M0963818384Z3
Quantity: 3 available
Seller: GF Books, Inc., Hawthorne, CA, U.S.A.
Condition: Very Good. Book is in Used-VeryGood condition. Pages and cover are clean and intact. Used items may not include supplementary materials such as CDs or access codes. May show signs of minor shelf wear and contain very limited notes and highlighting. 0.37. Seller Inventory # 0963818384-2-3
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Book Deals, Tucson, AZ, U.S.A.
Condition: Fair. Acceptable/Fair condition. Book is worn, but the pages are complete, and the text is legible. Has wear to binding and pages, may be ex-library. 0.37. Seller Inventory # 353-0963818384-acp
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Omega, Springdale, AR, U.S.A.
Condition: Acceptable. **PLEASE READ** There is a significant bend on the cover of this book!! **PLEASE READ** There is a rip on the cover of this book. FAST shipping, FREE tracking, and GREAT customer service! We also offer EXPEDITED and TWO DAY shipping options on qualifying orders. Seller Inventory # 3D7E2G003UMI_ns
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Book Deals, Tucson, AZ, U.S.A.
Condition: Fine. Like New condition. Great condition, but not exactly fully crisp. The book may have been opened and read, but there are no defects to the book, jacket or pages. 0.37. Seller Inventory # 353-0963818384-lkn
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Irish Booksellers, Portland, ME, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. SHIPS FROM USA. Used books have different signs of use and do not include supplemental materials such as CDs, Dvds, Access Codes, charts or any other extra material. All used books might have various degrees of writing, highliting and wear and tear and possibly be an ex-library with the usual stickers and stamps. Dust Jackets are not guaranteed and when still present, they will have various degrees of tear and damage. All images are Stock Photos, not of the actual item. book. Seller Inventory # 0963818384-R
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: GoldenDragon, Houston, TX, U.S.A.
Paperback. Condition: new. Buy for Great customer experience. Seller Inventory # GoldenDragon0963818384
Quantity: 1 available