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.
She lived in Vermont until her death in 2011..
She taught creative writing at many universities, finally settling at SUNY Binghamton.
About the Author: Ruth Stone is the author of 13 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.
Her heroes are dead husbands, wild grandmothers, struggling daughters: Ordinary Americans leading simple and extraOrdinary lives.
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 Mc Donalds as a refuge from loneliness.
Poems are set in Rutland, Vermont
Indianapolis
Chattanooga
Houston
Boise; and Troy, New York (where celluloid collars were made).
Ordinary Words shows that poetry is about everyday life, our life.
Ruth Stone is a poet of the people, and poet\'s poet.
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.
The poet addresses the environment, poverty, and aging with fearless candor and surprising humor.
Ordinary Words captures a unique vision of Americana, marked by Stone\'s characteristic wit, poignancy, and lyricism.
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
