Dunce

Ruefle (My Private Party) delivers a giddy, incisive ode to failure, fragility, and unknowing in her 12th book. "It may be our heads/ are filled with feathers/ from the stuff/ we don't know," she hazards, tiptoeing through one after another outlandish scenario sketched with uncanny delicacy. Many of these poems conceal sly fragments of lyric allusion or history: "I loved to wander, utterly alone"; "The fourteenth way of looking at/ a blackbird is mine." Rhymes abound as though refusing resistance to such play, and a poem that opens in euphoria ("What a beautiful day for a wedding!") ends, just a few lines later, in despair ("I hate my poems"). However, the poet reassures the reader that such states are kindred, even twinned. Ruefle celebrates the world's imagination and mystery: "I want to thank my clothes for protecting my body. I want to/ fold them properly--I want/ the energy that flows from my hands/ to engulf the world./ Upon reflection, this is not/ possible. Upon reflection/ it is I who am pummeled by/ the world, that vast massage/ machine." These poems grace the readers with wonder, wisdom, and whim "conducted/ without compromise," securing Ruefle's reputation among poets as the patron saint of childhood and the everyday. (Sept.)

Nixie It began with a phone number. Then a grocery list. A postcard to a dead friend and then a long letter in the green hell of a long summer. With queer little geometrical figures in the margins. Then winter came with the monstrosity of a true artist, its snow didn't know whether to play Bach or Beethoven, its light in a light all its own. I called and called. I went shopping but the black diamonds downtown were not on sale, so I am writing to tell you the ring you wanted will have to wait, we are telling stories around the brazier, it is warm near the tripod and snug, the hour makes a soft music all its own, I wish more than anything you were here beside us, and not under the maple in Mr. Morioka's garden. I used to think everything had meaning-- and it does. Excerpted from Dunce by Mary Ruefle All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.