Ruth Stone

Ruth Stone
Stone in 2009
Born	(1915-06-08)June 8, 1915 Roanoke, Virginia, U.S.
Died	November 19, 2011(2011-11-19) (aged 96) Ripton, Vermont, U.S.
Education	University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (BA)
Occupations	Poet teacher author
Known for	What Love Comes To
Awards	2009 Pulitzer Prize finalist, 2007 Vermont State Poet, 2002 National Book Award, Whiting Award and two Guggenheim Fellowships[1][2]

Ruth Stone (June 8, 1915 – November 19, 2011) was an American poet.^[3]

Life and poetry

Stone was born in Roanoke, Virginia and lived there until age 6, when her family moved back to her parents' hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana.^[4][5] She went to college at the University of Illinois. Her first marriage was to John Clapp in 1935,^[4] and they had one daughter.^[5] Her second marriage was to professor and poet Walter Stone, in 1944,^[4] with whom she had two daughters.^[5] Walter Stone, who served in World War II, received a PhD from Harvard, and taught at University of Illinois, and then at Vassar College.^[6] Walter Stone committed suicide in 1959; this tragedy shaped the path of Ruth Stone's life, as she sought ways to support herself and her daughters by teaching poetry at universities across the United States.

Her work is distinguished by its tendency to draw imagery and language from the natural sciences.

Stone died at her home in Goshen, Vermont, on November 19, 2011.^[7] She was buried near the raspberry bushes behind her Goshen home.^[8]

Career

Stone's verse was published widely in periodicals, and she was the author of thirteen books of poetry.^[9]

In 1990 Stone became a professor of English and Creative Writing at Binghamton University, and retired from this position at the age of 85.^[5]

Early on, Stone's work was recognized by editors. While her husband was teaching at Vassar College, Stone received the Kenyon Review Fellowship in Poetry.

House in Goshen, Vermont

When Stone received the Kenyon Review Fellowship in Poetry, she and Walter used the funds to buy a house in Goshen, Vermont, expecting that it would be a place to go in the summers, and to eventually retire.^[6] The house became a refuge for Stone after Walter's death, and over the years, became an intellectual center for her students and other poets.^[6]

Awards

• Poetry Magazine Bess Hoken Prize, 1953^[4]
• Kenyon Review Fellowship in Poetry, 1956^[10]
• Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, 1963-1965^[4]
• Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, 1965^{[citation needed]}
• Guggenheim Fellowship, Poetry, 1971^[11]
• Guggenheim Fellowship, Poetry, 1975^[11]
• Delmore Schwartz Award, 1983^[4]
• Whiting Award, 1986^[4]
• Paterson Poetry Prize, 1988^{[citation needed]}
• Cerf Lifetime Achievement Award, State of Vermont^{[citation needed]}
• National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry for Ordinary Words, 1999^{[citation needed]}
• Eric Mathieu King Award from the Academy of American Poets, 1999^{[citation needed]}
• National Book Award for In the Next Galaxy, 2002^{[citation needed]}
• Wallace Stevens Award, Academy of American Poets, 2002^{[citation needed]}
• Poet Laureate of Vermont, 2007^{[citation needed]}
• Finalist, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for What Love Comes To: New and Selected Poems, 2009^{[citation needed]}

Legacy

Stone's long-time residence in Goshen, Vermont was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016. Her heirs (both literary and family) — including her granddaughter, poet and visual artist Bianca Stone^[12] — have established a foundation to convert the property into a writer's retreat.^[13]

Paintbrush: A Journal of Poetry and Translation 27 (2000/2001) was devoted entirely to Stone's work.

The Ruth Stone Poetry Prize awarded by The Vermont College of Fine Arts and their literary journal Hunger Mountain is in its sixth year.^[14]

Stone's daughters Phoebe Stone and Abigail Stone, and her granddaughters Hillery Stone and Bianca Stone, are all published writers.

Cultural references

The voice of Ruth Stone reading her poem "Be Serious" is featured in the film USA The Movie.^[15]

A documentary film by Nora Jacobson, Ruth Stone's Vast Library of the Female Mind, was released in 2022.^[16]

Bibliography

• What Love Comes To: New and Selected Poems, Bloodaxe Books, UK edition, 2009, ISBN 978-1-85224-841-3
• What Love Comes To: New and Selected Poems. Copper Canyon Press. 2008. ISBN 978-1-55659-327-7. —finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize^[17]
• In the Dark. Copper Canyon Press. 2004. ISBN 978-1-55659-210-2.; Copper Canyon Press, 2007, ISBN 978-1-55659-250-8
• In the Next Galaxy. Copper Canyon Press. 2002. ISBN 978-1-55659-207-2. winner of the National Book Award^[18]
• Ordinary Words, Paris Press, 2000, ISBN 978-0-9638183-8-6 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
• Simplicity, Paris Press, 1996, ISBN 978-0-9638183-1-7
• Who is the Widow's Muse?, Yellow Moon Press, 1991, ISBN 978-0-938756-32-3
• The Solution Alembic Press, Ltd., 1989, ISBN 978-0-9621666-3-1
• Second Hand Coat: Poems New and Selected 1987; Yellow Moon Press, 1991, ISBN 978-0-938756-33-0
• American Milk, From Here Press, 1986, ISBN 978-0-89120-027-7
• Cheap: New Poems and Ballads, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975, ISBN 978-0-15-117034-0
• Unknown Messages Nemesis Press, 1973
• Topography and Other Poems Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971, ISBN 978-0-15-190495-2
• In an Iridescent Time, Harcourt, Brace, 1959

Archive

Ruth Stone's papers reside at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia.

References

External links

• Ruth Stone Foundation
• Ruth Stone Biog and audio files from the Poetry Foundation
• Ruth Stone from the Academy of American Poets
• Profile at The Whiting Foundation
• "What Love Comes To", Joe Ahearn, Cold Front, September 3, 2008
• "The Imagined Galaxies of Ruth Stone", NPR
• "Ruth Stone", Narrative Magazine
• "On the Road to Paradise: An Interview with Ruth Stone", The Drunken Boat, Rebecca Seiferle
• TED - Elizabeth Gilbert talks about the way Ruth Stone has "caught" poems that were "searching" for an author
• In Memoriam of Ruth Stone, written by her daughter Abigail Stone from THEthe Poetry Blog
• Ruth Stone on YouTube, September 2008

This page was last edited on 6 April 2024, at 16:16