Wavelength

In Carol Rucks’ second collection Wavelength, her poems crest from one wave to the next as she owns her Neanderthal heritage and “roams about on foot” through the underbelly of Minneapolis neighborhoods. Master of the short poem, she often takes us to the darker side of relationships as in “Friend of a Friend” and in “Arguments,” then soars into the tenderness of love in “Bedroom Travelogue” and “Happy Hour.” We enter her many dreamscapes and natural landscapes, always gleaning some insight into human character. We stretch out on her beaches and dive into her world, as in the poem “In Blue Water:” “...coming to flesh and bone / from the warm mother of the waves.”

—June Blumenson, author of A Scythe of Moon

Whether it is relationships, the state of humanity, the neighborhood, or the people she shares a ride with on mass transit, Rucks is ready to shake it all down and observe each experience with an open curiosity. She’s an inhabitant of cities, but she’s not presenting the images of a glossy
tourist brochure. She takes you through back alleys, diners, dark bars, and crowded coffee houses, and with a sly finger, she lifts up the fabric of city life. There is a kinetic physicality to these poems that will stir, awaken, and delight the reader.

—Jim Smith, blogger, storyteller, poet

In Wavelength, we enter local landscapes and faraway places that are joyful, mesmerizing and humorous. We wander through urban life encounters with friends, lovers, strangers. Rucks describes all of these events through down to earth sensory and sensuous descriptions and stunning metaphors, as in her poem “Interval:” “I learn to live / inside crevices of bark / like an insect.” So many poems to love here. So many to fall into again and again.

—Roseann Lloyd, author of The Boy Who Slept Under the Stars