Short Essay on Ruth Stone

Michal S. Glaser edited a book about Ruth Stone and included a short essay I wrote about her in it.

photography by Marlys West

Not Tedious: Ruth Stone

I took my first poetry workshop at St. Mary’s College with Michael Glaser, who brought Ruth Stone to campus.  In preparation we read her poetry— very different from what I’d read previously, which wasn’t much:  Mother Goose, Nancy Drew, two Shakespearean sonnets and Beowulf.  In person, Ruth Stone did not look like a poet.  She looked like someone’s shy and slightly weird aunt.  I was intrigued.

Growing up in Maryland, my hometown was field corn and cow pastures with pockets of housing developments.  It wasn’t rural, but it wasn’t cosmopolitan, either— which is what I wanted.   I did not want to go to SMC.  The drive down past miles of tobacco fields was hardly promising.  Just like home, I thought.  I’ll end up being the slightly weird girl.  Again.

Before Ruth Stone, I did not expect poetry to have anything to do with me.  Beowulf was tedious, The Odyssey was tedious, sonnets were tedious.  Walt Whitman was tedious and possibly drunk.  Ruth Stone was not tedious.  Her poems were strange, but not strange enough to leave me out altogether.  She used objects I knew— oyster shells, beetles, ladies at a beach, silk strings, birds and balloons— to tell stories.  I began to read with a sense of wonder and to write poems for myself.

Years later back to SMC as an artist-in-residence, I was thrilled to have dinner with Lucille Clifton, Michael and Kathleen Glaser.  I wanted to see what poets did when they weren’t giving talks and teaching classes and I will tell you what they do.  They feed their friends.  They write, work, teach and mentor young people.  They share what they love so that others learn to listen and create community, which we need in this world.