Heaven-and-Earth House is a book of lyrical poems and dramatic monologues that attempts to explore the balance between the physical and the spiritual, the mind and the body. The book is set and grounded in Mary Swander's own Midwestern landscape. It follows her quest to find her sense of place within the surrounding Amish countryside of her native Iowa, and to find her sense of self within and without her physical body. Through gardening, tending goats and sheep, through her work with massage, over and over again she is put in touch with the five basic elements. Earth, water, fire, metal and air come to encompass not only a schema of medicine but a life process that seeks finally to find the hope of "worldly" transcendence. Always close to the earth and its animals, always beautifully constructed, always masterly in the ways of storytelling, Mary Swander's poems are experiences both moving and profoundly delightful.

In a daring novel that deftly fuses wild, satiric humor and deeply felt pain, Melanie Sumner tells the story of the Pepperses of Counterpoint, Georgia—a family that never raises their voices or honks a horn and "avoids discussing sex, politics, and religion, favoring the topic of the weather, which averages seventy-five degrees in Counterpoint year-round." Henry, a stoic businessman, vies for rule of the house with his flamboyant wife, Florida, a pertinacious Baptist and aspiring artist. Together, their clear mission is to protect and guide their children—asthmatic, hormonal Roderick and hell-bent Louise—and keep them well dressed. So when Louise flees the Maude Wilson College for Women to join the Arthur Reese Traveling Show, Henry and Florida will do anything to win her back.

The story of Ignacia Vigil Romero, a full Jacarilla Apache, and the two boys, Mister and Tomás, she raised to adulthood unfolds in a barrio of Taos, New Mexico—a mixed community of Native Americans, Hispanics, and whites. Now deceased, Ignacia, a curandera—a medicine woman, though some say a witch—begins this tale of star-crossed lovers. Mister and Tomás, best friends until their late teens, both fall for Rocky, a gringa of some mystery, a girl Tomás takes for himself. But in a moment of despair, a pledge between the young men leads to murder. When Ignacia falls silent, police reports, witness statements, and caseworker interviews draw an electrifying portrait of a troubled community and of the vulnerable players in this mounting tragedy. Set in a terrain that becomes a character in its own right, The Ghost of Milagro Creek brilliantly illuminates this hidden corner of American society.

The 52 poems in this outstanding new collection form a cycle that explores the grief and loneliness epitomized by "the widow" but shared by all. As with all her work, the poems are written with a candor and honesty that is refreshingly wild, even a little mad. The poems are illuminated with seven illustrations by Phoebe Stone, Ruth's daughter.

Winner of the Pushcart Prize for Poetry.

“By turns sly, subtle, exuberant, poignant, bawdy and bitter—and always unflinchingly honest—Ruth Stone’s Simplicity is anything but simple. In poems of daring and complexity, Stone tells the truths of love and grief, examines the politics of past and future, plunges through Einstein’s cosmos . . . She is one of poetry’s wise women, one of our age’s fiercest, purest, most original poets.” —Sandra M. Gilbert

This collection, with 45 new poems, chronicles the work of a voice swept by loss, love, the facts of nature, and the curse of the literary life.

Ordinary Words celebrates Ruth Stone’s 84th birthday. This brilliant new collection is the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Eric Mathieu King Award from the Academy of American Poets.

Ordinary Words captures a unique vision of “Americana” marked by Stone’s characteristic wit, poignancy, and lyricism. The poet addresses the environment, poverty, and aging with fearless candor and surprising humor. Sister poet to Nobel Prize-winner Wislawa Syzmborska, Ruth Stone offers a view of her country and its citizens that is tender and wacky, filled with hard political truths as well as love, beauty, cruelty, and sorrow. Ruth Stone is a poet of the people, and poet’s poet. Her following is devoted and ever-growing. Ordinary Words shows that poetry is about everyday life, our life. Poems are set in Rutland, Vermont; Indianapolis; Chattanooga; Houston; Boise; and Troy, New York (where celluloid collars were made). Stone’s subjects are trailer parks, state parks, prefab houses, school crossing guards, bears, snakes, hummingbirds, bottled water, Aunt Maud, Uncle Cal, lost love, dry humping at the Greyhound bus terminal, and McDonald’s as a refuge from loneliness. Her heroes are dead husbands, wild grandmothers, struggling daughters: ordinary Americans leading simple and extraordinary lives.

When asked whether poets improve with age, Ruth Stone, 89, replied: “There’s no question. If your brain goes on and on, as it should under normal conditions, there’s more in it and your writing will get more profound.” Year after year, Ruth Stone’s poems turn ever more penetrating. Fresh from her National Book Award, this prophetic new book is filled with winter, fractals, and passionate aging.

Stone's first book of poetry, published in 1959.

Stewart's first book of poetry.