Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Trances of the Blast
    Trances of the Blast
    Trances of the Blast
    Ebook119 pages55 minutes

    Trances of the Blast

    By Mary Ruefle

    4.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    • Ruefle’s most recent book, Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures was a finalist for the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism. The book also received a full-page write-up in the January 16, 2013 New York Times Book Review.

    • Ruefle's most recent collection of lectures, Madness, Rack, and Honey, as well as her Selected Poems generated high sales, and both are continually among Wave's topselling titles. We expect this newest collection to sell similarly to her Selected Poems hardcover.

    • Trances of the Blast promises to be an exciting book for fans of Mary Ruefle's poetry and prose, but also will appeal to readers interested in influential contemporary poets such as Dean Young and Tony Hoagland, with whom she has been compared.

    • Ruefle's poetry recently appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, and Poetry magazine (which recently awarded Ruefle with the Editors Prize for Feature Article in 2012).

    • Ruefle is the recipient of numerous high profile awards, including the William Carlos Williams award for her Selected Poems in 2011, and fellowships, including a Guggenheim fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWave Books
    Release dateJul 28, 2020
    ISBN9781950268269
    Trances of the Blast

    Read more from Mary Ruefle

    Related to Trances of the Blast

    Related ebooks

    General Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      On Louise Glück

      Dec 1, 2021

      I WAS LYING in bed late at night, woeful, confused by another death, this one the death of a close friend; the losses had been mounting steadily, a bewildering number of losses, each one specific, difficult to accept, hard to overcome, and I must hav

      12 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      Five Poems
      5 min read

    • Article

      Restless Herd

      Apr 14, 2021

      Restless Herd
      21 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Jul 1, 2020

      She was a security guard and even though her uniform was black I could seeIt was covered in blood, the marble floor was covered in blood, it wasSlowly pooling out from the space where HER HAND used to beOh my god, I said, then I started to say, YOUR

      3 min read

    • Article

      Devil Asks Why You Would Mouth The Word Pity

      Jul 1, 2022

      even in this abundance of dark? Even in this abundance of dark you have totake the stars on faith. Look: Under today’s dim sky there is a basket.In that basket there is a fish. Come night, you are the animal that will eat the best parts of it. And ye

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Fiction No. 254

      Jun 14, 2022

      The Art of Fiction No. 254
      33 min read

    • Article

      Where To Start With Louise Glück, Winner Of The 2020 Nobel Prize In Literature

      Oct 14, 2020

      The Swedish Academy has awarded this year's Nobel Prize in literature to Louise Gluck, a former U.S. poet laureate. The 16th woman to win the prestigious prize and the first American woman since Toni Morrison in 1993, Gluck is the author of 12 poetry

      3 min read

    • Article

      Rot

      Sep 2, 2022

      Rot
      1 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems by Sheri Benning

      Mar 9, 2021

      the baby, name lost. 1906. Spring born,almond and blackthorn in bloom. Meadowsweet,chickweed, petals of milk on her lips. Spider-silk saliva from mouth to crab apple fists,on Mother’s lap, the train from Kiev to Minskafter the last harvest in Tiegeno

      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Trances of the Blast

    4.5/5

    4 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Trances of the Blast - Mary Ruefle

      SAGA

      Everything that ever happened to me

      is just hanging—crushed

      and sparkling—in the air,

      waiting to happen to you.

      Everything that ever happened to me

      happened to somebody else first.

      I would give you an example

      but they are all invisible.

      Or off gallivanting around the globe.

      Not here when I need them

      now that I need them

      if I ever did which I doubt.

      Being particular has its problems.

      In particular there is a rift through everything.

      There is a rift running the length of Iceland

      and so a rift runs through every family

      and between families a feud.

      It’s called a saga. Rifts and sagas

      fill the air, and beautiful old women

      sing of them, so the air is filled with

      music and the smell of berries and apples

      and shouting when a gun goes off

      and crying in closed rooms.

      Faces, who needs them?

      Eating the blood of oranges

      I in my alcove could use one.

      Abbas and ammas!

      come out of your huts, travel

      halfway around the world,

      inspect my secret bank account of joy!

      My face is a jar of honey

      you can look through,

      you can see everything

      is muted, so terribly muted,

      who could ever speak of it,

      sealed and held up for all?

      METAPHYSICAL BLIGHT

      I think it was Saturday my mother was

      pregnant with me she could not find

      a place to eat the restaurants were crowded

      it was the Saturday before Christmas

      so she bought a meatpie some fries

      a carton of milk from a kiosk

      and I became a person.

      What if all the cows ate all the grass

      and there were no grass?

      What if the women were ground

      to a Turkish grind for some worthy cause

      and there were no women? Without grass

      and without women, what could be made?

      What could be added to the world?

      And the many cows munching in it,

      the sound of their manifold munching,

      would be as pervasive as a stream

      in the not-too-distant.

      A world of worried babies without grass,

      without women, what would that mean?

      You can guess the rest of the story,

      how this dear foolish little bit of

      Christmas shopping made me lonely,

      so lonely even the carton of milk

      failed to cause my cracked heart

      to sprout a little wheat.

      SPIKENARD

      Sentence, you always

      spoiled my evening.

      This is the journal

      of my journal.

      I used to sniff dill

      when things went poorly,

      then something snapped inside me.

      I plunged my hand in—

      after watercress, I guess.

      A stream in the middle of me

      is not a hospital,

      but it takes care of things:

      some are dammed,

      some let go.

      But only after all.

      After I had my crying,

      I had to indent again.

      The scent of spikenard

      is nice. It smells of

      weird responsibility.

      It makes me roll

      my stockings down.

      I wash my feet with it.

      Like pale writing

      they lie there on the floor.

      I spend more time with my journal

      than I spend with myself.

      The end.

      THE ESTATE OF SINGLE BLESSEDNESS

      In this room

      we looked naked.

      Without a theory,

      three eggs in a bowl.

      Little by little

      we gave up the hope

      of ever being understood.

      We gave off a big glow.

      Outside the window

      long-tailed pheasants

      swept the forlorn lawns.

      Little by little

      the house painted by dusk

      had its shadow removed.

      Monks shot the white hares

      at dawn, some of them

      ran away and never.

      Some of the monks too.

      ARE WE ALONE? IS IT SAFE TO SPEAK?

      Dear Unknown Friend,

      I know I am real to you,

      and though you aren’t that real to me

      without you I would not exist.

      Certainly

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1