Ruefle can seem like a supernally well-read person who has grown bored
with what smartness looks like, and has grown attracted to the other
side. . . . She is not writing with a prescription, or at least not one
for this earth. Nor is she celebrating the commonplace. She is
concentrating on one thing at a time.--New York Times
The property that Ruefle deems private is the impalpable nature of the
inner life we all share; it is at once ours and everyone's. . . . Ruefle
has shown a talent for elevating her acute observations and narrative
inclination well above mere anecdote to create quietly disquieting
moments--a literature of barbed ambiguity and unresolved disruption.
--Bookforum
Author of Madness, Rack, and Honey and Trances of the Blast, Mary
Ruefle continues to be one of the most dazzling poets in America. My
Private Property, comprised of short prose pieces, is a brilliant and
charming display of her humor, deep imagination, mindfulness, and play.
Mary Ruefle is the author of many books, including Trances of the
Blast; Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures, a finalist for the
2013 National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism; and Selected
Poems, winner of the William Carlos Williams Award. 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.
