Mary Ruefle is the author of the forthcoming book Trances of the Blast (Wave Books, 2013), Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures (Wave Books, 2012), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism, and Selected Poems (Wave Books, 2010), winner of the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. She has published ten books of poetry, a book of prose (The Most of It, Wave Books, 2008), and a comic book, Go Home and Go to Bed!, (Pilot Books/Orange Table Comics, 2007).
Poetry
Jan/Feb 2019
Boutonniere
Standing alone after the harvest, what is the point of dreams? At some age, the world begins to drift away The world is changed as you came here The people […]
Poetry
Jan/Feb 2019
Vocation
. . . I was saying I am terrified of swallowing an avocado pit, of having this big world growing inside me, of giving birth to a vocalization that would […]
Poetry
Jan/Feb 2019
30 March
The daffodils came out with trumpets, announcing they would start today for the Holy Grail. Poor things! Poor things! If it is to be, I plan to watch. Barefoot shivering […]
Poetry
Sept/Oct 2018
Vow of Extinction
From this day forward all plants except the lemon tree will be banished from my poems From this day forward I am wedded to the sky All clouds shall be […]
Poetry
Sept/Oct 2018
Resin
I am going to die. No such thought has ever occurred to me since the beginning of my exclusive time in air, when God, having made my mind, first began […]
Poetry
Summer 2014
Grandma Moses
Real snow glitters, so add glitter to the paint when painting snow. When the barn burns study a cat’s tongue for the shape of the flames, flames lick the air, […]
Poetry
Summer 2014
Tuna and a Play
Tonight we are having tuna and a play. Earlier, I picked grasses with J. Blue grass, pink grass, silver grass, we each carried a bouquet. I asked J if she […]
Poetry
Summer 2014
Pink Kisses
Will you be my black friend? Will you be my gay friend? Will you be my manic-depressive friend? Will you be my personal cloud, my PC friend? Do you have […]
Poetry
Summer 2014
Muguet des Bois
I was an unopened action figure hidden inside an egg insidean ovary. The next thing I knew I was on the couch reading Madame Bovary. And when I finished I […]
Poetry
Summer 2014
The Milkmaid
Milkmaids, milkmaids, their cheeks are fat and rosy, their calves are chubby and have a sheen, they carry a heavy tray, in braids and aprons they go round and round, […]
Poetry
Spring 2009
New Morning
I smell the cream before I put it in my coffee because I never want to suffer like that again as long as I live, it was unbearable, no one […]
Poetry
Spring 2009
One World at a Time
I wanted to starch my own headdress. I wanted my fingers to smell always of laundry. I wanted the sounds of my shoes to echo down the long corridors. I […]
Poetry
Spring 2009
Metaphysical Blight
I think it was Saturday my mother was pregnant with me she could not find a place to eat the restaurants were crowded it was the Saturday before Christmas so […]
Poetry
Spring 2009
Apologia
I used to love to kneel down and pray for the bud but now that the chestnuts are empty I have not combed my hair in years. The days of […]
Poetry
Spring 2009
Bright Enough
The shadow of the earth is bright enough for me The self-denial of the last Beatle is enough for me Something down, down in the terrestrial is terribly bright In […]
Poetry
Spring 2009
A Custom of Mourning
I wore blood on my clothes for three days. I used my initials, never my name. I would not cut the grass nor make repairs no matter an outbuilding or […]
Poetry
Winter 1993
Timberland
Paul’s Fish Fry in Bennington, Vermont, is no longer Closed For The Season Reason Freezin. The umbrellas have opened over the picnic tables and the bees are beginning to annoy […]
Fall 2013
My Private Property
It is sad, is it not, that no one today displays any interest in the art of shrunken heads. Men, women and children walk on streets, they cross fields and […]