Dunce

Mary Ruefle is the author of many books, including Dunce(Wave Books, 2019), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry, and the LA Times Book Award; My Private Property (Wave Books, 2016), Trances of the Blast (Wave Books, 2013), Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures (Wave Books, 2012), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, and Selected Poems (Wave Books, 2010), which was the winner of the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. She is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Robert Creeley Award, 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, where she serves as the state's poet laureate.

Ruefle 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.—Publishers Weekly, starred review

• Contents Apple in WaterLong White CloudSolomonDunceThe Good Fortune of Material ExistenceMaria and the Halls of PerishCrackerbellResinA Late Dense WorkMidnight ExpressGeneral DirectionEarthly FailureTuna and a PlaySuddenlyUnbeknownstDark CornerAttention!Little StreamMeditation on My SkullNorth WindHappinessLorraineThe EventualistAre You Talking about a Funeral?The FriendSent to the MonkBath TimeSearchlightI Cannot Be Quiet an HourInterlude for a Solitary FluteMuguet des BoisDispirited While Packing My Books…The Death of Atahualpa at the Hands of Pizarro’s MenSingular DreamPatienceLightly, Very LightlyInglenookSuper BowlJewelweedThe UnfurlSequoiaThe NoteSpecial DeliveryA New DawnNixieLittle Travel BookGrandma MosesThe Heart of Princess OsraLillianWintersaultDestinationHappy BirthdayOrigin MythThe CakeA Morning PersonVow of ExtinctionHow We MetErrandThe Butter Festival30 MarchHalloweenBoutonniereGenesisThe Leaves Acknowledgments