This is one of the wisest books I've read in years... --New York Times
Book Review
No writer I know of comes close to even trying to articulate the weird
magic of poetry as Ruefle does. She acknowledges and celebrates in the
odd mystery and mysticism of the act--the fact that poetry must both
guard and reveal, hint at and pull back... Also, and maybe most
crucially, Ruefle's work is never once stuffy or overdone: she writes
this stuff with a level of seriousness-as-play that's vital and welcome,
that doesn't make writing poetry sound anything but wild, strange,
life-enlargening fun. -The Kenyon Review
Profound, unpredictable, charming, and outright funny...These informal
talks have far more staying power and verve than most of their kind.
Readers may come away dazzled, as well as amused... --Publishers
Weekly
This is a book not just for poets but for anyone interested in the human
heart, the inner-life, the breath exhaling a completion of an idea that
will make you feel changed in some way. This is a desert island book.
--Matthew Dickman
The accomplished poet is humorous and self-deprecating in this
collection of illuminating essays on poetry, aesthetics and
literature... --San Francisco Examiner
Over the course of fifteen years, Mary Ruefle delivered a lecture every
six months to a group of poetry graduate students. Collected here for
the first time, these lectures include Poetry and the Moon, Someone
Reading a Book Is a Sign of Order in the World, and Lectures I Will
Never Give. Intellectually virtuosic, instructive, and experiential,
Madness, Rack, and Honey resists definition, demanding instead an
utter--and utterly pleasurable--immersion. Finalist for the 2012
National Book Critics Circle Award.
Mary Ruefle has published more than a dozen books of poetry, prose,
and erasures. She lives in Vermont.
