Ruth Stone
Born
in Roanoke, Virginia, The United States
June 08, 1915
Died
November 19, 2011
Website
Genre
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In the Next Galaxy
5 editions
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published
2002
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What Love Comes To: New & Selected Poems
7 editions
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published
2008
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Ordinary Words
5 editions
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published
1999
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Essential Ruth Stone
by
2 editions
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published
2020
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In the Dark
2 editions
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published
2004
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Simplicity
4 editions
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published
1996
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Second-Hand Coat: Poems New and Selected
4 editions
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published
1987
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Who Is the Widow's Muse?
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published
1991
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Cheap: New Poems and Ballads
2 editions
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published
1975
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The Garland Handbook of African Music (Garland Handbooks of World Music)
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published
2008
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“The campus, an academy of trees,
under which some hand, the wind's I guess,
had scattered the pale light
of thousands of spring beauties,
petals stained with pink veins;
secret, blooming for themselves.
We sat among them.
Your long fingers, thin body,
and long bones of improbable genius;
some scattered gene as Kafka must have had.
Your deep voice, this passing dust of miracles.
That simple that was myself, half conscious,
as though each moment was a page
where words appeared; the bent hammer of the type
struck against the moving ribbon.
The light air, the restless leaves;
the ripple of time warped by our longing.
There, as if we were painted
by some unknown impressionist.”
― In the Next Galaxy
under which some hand, the wind's I guess,
had scattered the pale light
of thousands of spring beauties,
petals stained with pink veins;
secret, blooming for themselves.
We sat among them.
Your long fingers, thin body,
and long bones of improbable genius;
some scattered gene as Kafka must have had.
Your deep voice, this passing dust of miracles.
That simple that was myself, half conscious,
as though each moment was a page
where words appeared; the bent hammer of the type
struck against the moving ribbon.
The light air, the restless leaves;
the ripple of time warped by our longing.
There, as if we were painted
by some unknown impressionist.”
― In the Next Galaxy
“Stone: Yes, we are everything, every experience we've ever had, and in some of us, a lot of it translates and makes patterns, poems. But, my God, we don't even began to touch upon it. There's an enormous amount, but we can touch such a little.
Interviewer: That's true, just a very small portion.
Stone: Very small. I think that's one of the things that our minds do; they sort out, somehow, often, and make patterns of significant things to us. And I think our minds do that for us in the dark, and then they offer them back in poems. I think your mind makes up your poem before you get it. You know, you receive the poem from your mind, you know you do. It takes a multitude of experiences, and all this language, and all this sound, and puts it together in these patterns that are significant to you and gives it back to you.”
―
Interviewer: That's true, just a very small portion.
Stone: Very small. I think that's one of the things that our minds do; they sort out, somehow, often, and make patterns of significant things to us. And I think our minds do that for us in the dark, and then they offer them back in poems. I think your mind makes up your poem before you get it. You know, you receive the poem from your mind, you know you do. It takes a multitude of experiences, and all this language, and all this sound, and puts it together in these patterns that are significant to you and gives it back to you.”
―
“Interviewer: The other day, when we first talked, you said that you felt that, when you were writing, you were often following invisible patterns.
Stone: I don't see them so much as hear them, and I know that a poem will happen and later I will look at it, and say: Wow, where did that come from? how did I do that? I didn't set out to do that, but the neural connections are so fast, the body, the self is so slow, (laughs) that you're kind of astonished. It's odd.”
―
Stone: I don't see them so much as hear them, and I know that a poem will happen and later I will look at it, and say: Wow, where did that come from? how did I do that? I didn't set out to do that, but the neural connections are so fast, the body, the self is so slow, (laughs) that you're kind of astonished. It's odd.”
―
Topics Mentioning This Author
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Book Nook Cafe: Poetry - | 463 | 353 | Nov 27, 2012 07:46AM | |
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