Selected Poems - 2nd Edition by Mary Ruefle (Paperback)

About the Book

A career-defining retrospective by a much-beloved contemporary master.

Book Synopsis

"[Selected Poems] offers readers a chance to catch on to one of the most distinctive talents of our time, one of the few who can genuinely startle. . . . Ruefle is clearly one of the best American poets writing, and her body of work is remarkable for its spiritual force, intelligence, stylistic virtuosity, and adventurousness."--Tony Hoagland

of all things standing furthest
from what is real, stand these trees
shaking with dispensable joy . . .

Mary Ruefle is the winner of the 2011 William Carlos Williams Award and has authored ten collections of poetry; The Most of It, a book of prose; and A Little White Shadow, a collection of erasures. She teaches at Vermont College.

Review Quotes

"Her Selected Poems, like the work of William Carlos Williams, is a testimony not only to the power of artfulness, but to human empathy."--Rodney Jones, from his 2011 William Carlos Williams Award citation

"This first retrospective collection from Ruefle, which selects from her nine previous books of poetry... shows her to be a poet of visionary imagination, abiding sensitivity, and melancholy humor."--Publishers Weekly

"One of the enjoyable paradoxes of reading Ruefle's work is how easy it is to read, but how many possible meanings you can make. Though sometimes described as an experimental or "post-avant" poet, I have always found Ruefle's work intelligently accessible, charming and reader-friendly."--Jeannine Hall Gailey, The Rumpus

"Ruefle is clearly one of the best American poets writing, and her body of work is remarkable for its spiritual force, intelligence, stylistic virtuosity, and adventurousness."--Tony Hoagland, On the Seawall


"Her Selected Poems, like the work of William Carlos Williams, is a testimony not only to the power of artfulness, but to human empathy."--Rodney Jones, from his 2011 William Carlos Williams Award citation

"This first retrospective collection from Ruefle, which selects from her nine previous books of poetry... shows her to be a poet of visionary imagination, abiding sensitivity, and melancholy humor."--Publishers Weekly

"One of the enjoyable paradoxes of reading Ruefle's work is how easy it is to read, but how many possible meanings you can make. Though sometimes described as an experimental or "post-avant" poet, I have always found Ruefle's work intelligently accessible, charming and reader-friendly."--Jeannine Hall Gailey, The Rumpus

"Ruefle is clearly one of the best American poets writing, and her body of work is remarkable for its spiritual force, intelligence, stylistic virtuosity, and adventurousness."--Tony Hoagland, On the Seawall

About the Author

Mary Ruefle is the author of Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures, a finalist for the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism (Wave Books, 2012), and Selected Poems (Wave Books, 2010), winner of the William Carlos Williams Award. She has published ten other 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); she is also an erasure artist, whose treatments of nineteenth century texts have been exhibited in museums and galleries, and include the publication of A Little White Shadow (Wave Books, 2006). Ruefle is the recipient of numerous honors, including an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and a Whiting Award. She lives in Bennington, Vermont, and teaches in the MFA program at Vermont College.