Puzzled: Poems

Kansas poet Ruth Maus returns with her sharp wit and wry humor in Puzzled, her second full-length collection of poetry. The poems in this gorgeous, full-color volume are accompanied by the paintings of Katja Weiss, a German painter and Ruth’s distant cousin.


“Throughout Puzzled, Ruth Maus’s skillfully-wrought poems abound in delight and wonder, her curiosity and playfulness on full display. These are fun and memorable gems, with lines like ‘the mud mush slops and bitter blasts pitted the // voltage of longing,’ and keen observations such as ‘There is breadth in happy here, just breathing.’ Her poem ‘July’ is exemplary, cataloguing summer’s festive bounty in words exploding with sound; while in ‘Parent,’ her brilliant love letter to the craft of poetry, she hopes ‘perhaps // one of two will light up the world.’ She’s written an entire book of poems which will do just that.”
-Jonathan Greenhause, author of Cupping Our Palms, winner of the Birdy Poetry Prize (Meadowlark Press, 2022), Secret Traits of Everyday Things (Encircle Publications, 2017), and Sebastian’s Relativity (Anobium, 2011)

“Reading Ruth Maus’s poetry in Puzzled is like solving a jigsaw puzzle: one examines each poem to see where it fits and realizes each has its place. But being ‘puzzled’ also has the connotation of seeking answers, and her poems do that. Sharp, no-nonsense, crackling, they bring the reader to some hard truths.
“Katja Weiss’s art provides counterpoints of quiet, restful, yet mysterious places to contemplate the poems. Puzzled is synergy in its purest form.”
-Barbara Waterman-Peters, artist, author, and illustrator with articles in multiple magazines; co-author and illustrator of Ting & The Caterbury Tales; a Pushcart Prize nominee for “Winter Guests,” and recent winner of the Editor’s Choice Award in the 50th Anniversary issue of Inscape for her painting C19: One Crow Sorrow.

Ruth Maus, a native of Topeka, Kansas, has followed a love of learning around the world to places large and small, to pyramids and hedgerows, presidential balls and Kansas hayfields. She represented Smith College at the annual Glasscock Intercollegiate Poetry Contest where past contestants have included James Merrill, Sylvia Plath, Katha Pollit, Mary Jo Salter, James Agee, Frederick Buechner, Kenneth Koch, Donald Hall, William Manchester, Muriel Rukeyser, and Gjertrud Schnackenberg. Her poems have appeared in a variety of literary publications. Her first book of poetry, Valentine, published by Meadowlark Press, was a finalist in the 2019 Birdy Contest.

Katja Weiss, a native of Kiel, Germany, has always been attracted to art. After completing her education she spent one year in St. Louis, Missouri, as an au pair and perfected her English. The "wonderful and eventful time in the States" had a huge influence on her life. Back in Germany she developed her artistic style over the years and now specializes in oil painting. She especially loves to paint the beautiful seascapes, wide views and vast beaches of Northern Germany and nearby Denmark where she and her family spend a lot of time. She lives near Hamburg, Germany, with her husband and grown daughter.