An Interview with Ruth Stone by Mary Ann Wehler
Wehlers Interview with Ruth Stone will be published in the Paterson Literary Review, Vol. 30, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Editor, Poetry Center, Passaic County Community College, One Paterson, NJ 07505-1179
MW: I was first drawn to your poetry because it was written in HER story, more about women. How do you stay funny, not angry, and still subtle with your jabs.
RS: My anger is in all my poems. But heres the thing, in this world you cant just get up and bash them on the head. (men and academia). You have to be a little careful.
MW: In The House Made From Poetry 1996, Jan Freeman quotes you as saying, "Is this really good? Am I good?" I often wonder the same thing.
RS: Well you know, we shouldnt ask ourselves is this good. Our writing comes out of the totality of what we are. Writing is the only interaction I have with the universe.
MW: I remember you said, "Dont pay any attention to the critics."
RS: Jack Sweeney from Harvard told me, "Someday youll get published, dont pay any attention to them (critics). I think its true, you just have to write and not worry about what the critics are going to say.
MW: You have often said that poems come to you through your ear. My poems seem to come from my gut.
RS: That sounds really good to me, poems do come from the gut. Of course they do, all the best ones come from the gut., but my best poems I hear with my ear. Im extremely critical of the poem after its been written but I also pay strong attention to it when its coming. For example, one summer up in Goshen, Vermont, thats where my home is, I was hanging laundry out and I saw all these ants crawling along the clothes line. Well, I just dropped whatever I was hanging and ran upstairs in the house to get a book and write it down. If I dont write the poem down right away, Ill loose it. So, dont you see the poem came quickly, but that doesnt mean the idea was new. My head is full of ideas just filled to the brim, however I cant name the mechanism that turns that idea into a poem. Never keep a poem waiting, it might be a really good one and if you dont get it down its lost.
MW: I love your poem, "Names", the female self signification thats involved in it. I have the same experience in my life, I know nothing of my grandmothers or great grandmothers.
RS: Yes, yes, the wiping out of the lineage of women. Its an ongoing thing and we must fight it dont you agree? We need to reclaim a maternal legacy. Theres a backlash thats going on right now, Im very interested in science and I notice there are no articles in the science magazines written by women these days they are all written by men. They finally gave that woman an award for genetic corn but they waited so long to do it. Shes really old and doesnt have any idea what the award was for. Remember theres that scientist that stole the whole idea of Fractals from a woman and published it as if it was his own. Men do it all the time, its terrible. It makes me angry, they just sweep it all under the rug. Theres the whole idea of keeping girl children childlike, treating women as if they were bright children. That makes me angry, just to think about it.
MW: I remember when I divorced my first husband, my father said, "I never should have sent you to college."
RS: Exactly, men are threatened and hostile toward women. It may be genetic. (laughter) Look at the chimpanzees in the wild. They bat the young females around to make them subservient. Im afraid nature made a big mistake. (inventing men)
MW: Diane Wakoski says the humor in your poetry is more personal than political.
RS: Shes a nice person isnt she? But I am very political. I am deeply, inherently political. All my life I have been political. It is in every line of my poetry.
MW: Ive read most of your books. I always felt your poems were political, especially, in Cheap Coat, Simplicity and Ordinary Words.
RS: Ive got over a hundred new poems already. I just keep writing more and more.
MW: When you first wrote your poetry was in form and it rhymed. Could you talk about when that changed and why?
RS: When I was younger that was a kind of singing in my poetry, but after Walter died, the younger singing was subdued and not harsh enough. Of course, I still have a lot of inner rhyme. But I needed to find a different way to write my poems as time went by.
MW: May I read the my thesis statement to you and see if you agree? "In The House is Made of Poetry, Kevin Clark's thesis is that 'Stone's feminist work employs humor to render the lives of people pushed to the margins of society by economics and gender bias.' I maintain Stone does more than portray 'squalid, unsheltered lives'; she couches her anger of societal errors with humor so that her poems shriek at the reader to attend. Often her characters live on the edge but her finger is pointed directly at society and its lack of humanism. I will focus on poems that portray men's repression of women, the experience of characters that live outside of middle class life, and the treatment of the elderly."
RS: Well, I think youre right on, thats exactly right, thats me. You know its exactly right, I want my readers to listen up. We live in a terrible time, were going berserk, the whole world is going berserk and thats what Im saying, "You better listen up."
MW: Are you on Spring break or back at teaching? Whats been going on?
RS: I have to go to New York this week to read. Theres a big award, I wont win it, but Paris Press will get some recognition. You know my press is a small press.
MW: I s Jan Freeman, your editor, coming?
RS: Oh yes, this is a big deal. Its the National Book Critic Circle Award. Do you know it? They have an award for five categories, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, I wont win.
MW: Whose been nominated?
RS: Well, Rita Dove for one, shes famous and shell get it, and then there are three others besides me. Theres no money involved.
MW: Well Im going to be rooting for you, good luck.
RS: Maybe theyll give it to me because Im old. (laughter) No, Rita Dove will win but I have to go and read.
MW: Can I ask you a few more questions?
RS: Surego ahead.
MW: You talk about your father being a drummer and your Mother reading Tennyson, and the fact that you read at three. Were you home schooled?
RS: No, No, I went to regular grade school, high school, college, all of that.
MW: Your poem about names made me wonder why you took Walters last name?
RS: Oh, Thats a good question! My Dads name was Perkins. I didnt like that name. You know I was writing about feminist ideas but I wasnt marching down the street or carrying a flag nothing like that. If I chose a name today, it would be Daughter of Ruth, thats what Id want to be know as. More women are doing that taking their mothers name, or giving themselves a new name. We live in such a Patriarchal society women have found little in the way of defining themselves.
MA: In the introduction to The House is Made of Poetry, Sandra Gilbert lines you up with Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, Muriel Rukeyser, and Adrienne Rich. Who do you identify with? Who do you feel is on the same wave length as you?
RS: I love Elizabeth Bishops work, shes lyrical and interested in form but no not really who else?
MA: Rukeyser
RS: Oh Muriel, well of course I love Muriel ----big pause.
MA: How about Adrienne Rich?
RS: Hmmm. I like Adrienne as a human being, and I know she likes me too. But, we are very far apart in our writing.
MA: Emily Dickinson
RS: She was before my time, very gifted.
MA: I really havent learned to love Emily Dickinson.
RS: Thats all right. You dont have to. What is it you dont like about her?
MA: All those bees and flowers.
RS: Well tell me some poets you like.
MA: Tony Hoagland, Phillip Levine, Marie Howe, Sharon Olds, Gerald Stern, Dean Young. I write narrative poems.
RS: Of course, youre like me, you like to write about people. Ive read with Phil many times and Ive know Sharon Olds since she was a baby. But you know, Emily Dickinson was way ahead of her time. She used inventive language. She used language others didnt use, so condensed. It takes the form from a pattern in her mind I think. She said a great deal in a very formal time. She didnt write like the people of her time. She was out of the time bracket. She leaped ahead. She was aligned to the natural world. She had a religious belief that really connect with the natural world. Have you read what Martha Smith has to say about her? That could help, but you dont have to like Emily Dickinson, thats alright. All this work, if I was your advisor, I wouldnt make you do all this work. Writing topic sentences, its old fashioned. You know its something the Patriarchal society dreamed up, the professors at the universities. You know why they do it? Its a smokescreen, they like to complicate things so that people cant understand what theyre talking about. They want the reader to feel stupid that way theyll feel smarter.
MA: Well, everyone has to do it the MFA programs.
RS: Nonsense
MA: Tell me what woman writer do you most identify with?
RS: Easy! Alicia Ostriker, I simply love her. She is one of the pioneering women.
MA: You know I worked with her in October. She reassured me that it was ok to keep on obsessing about my mother. She obsessed about the bible for ten years. She said, "Follow your obsessions."
RS: Thats right, follow your obsessions, thats where the energy is.
MA: Where did your anger with men come from? How old were you?
RS: I was older, when Walter died, I finally woke up to what was going on. I was in Illinois teaching and a bunch of us bought out a magazine and put womens writing into it. I must have been 44, I was 42 when he died.
MA: What triggered your strong feminist streak was it the fact that you had to raise your kids alone?
RS: How old are you?
MA: Sixty-six, I raised five kids alone for several years.
RS: You sound so young. My grandmother was a feminist and my mother really was too without knowing it. I just didnt see it til after Walter died. Do you have a nice man now.
MA: Yes, very nice. The first man I was married to was no good.
RS: I know what you mean. My first marriage wasnt any good.
MA: Did you ever meet a man after Walter?
RS: (laughter) Other men just didnt measure up. Walter thought we were twins.
MA: Cosmic twins!
RS: Yes, something like that. You know I like your writing, its good and its honest.
MA: Thank you, Im working on getting better.
RS: Putting it out there for everyone to see, publishing forces us to be better writers doesnt it.
MA: Yes, and a lot of my energy first came from anger. I need to find other forms of energy. Where did your anger come from?
RS: My anger came from everyday injustice. Men are respected and women are put down, even today. Theres not enough change. And, I never told anyone, but when I was five my cousin took advantage of me under the bed. I dont remember exactly what he did to me. Thats what men do, they overpower women. I was afraid of my father. He was critical and nervous. He was better than most fathers but just the same I was afraid of him. You know he didnt make much money as a musician so he set linotype. He worked nights. He would find my poems around the house and set them up on the linotype and leave them for me in the morning. When do you go to Vermont for school? I want you to come to my place. Wed have a good time. Its just a couple hours away.
MA: Oh, my gosh.
RS: Well, its not much. Maybe you wouldnt want to, maybe you wouldnt like it. Lots of people come up and visit me. Sharon Olds, Toi Derricott
MA: Oh I know Toi, I heard her sing this wonderful poem about birth.
RS: Guess what! I taught Toi how to sing her poems.
Wehlers Interview with Ruth Stone will be published in the Paterson Literary Review, Vol. 30, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Editor, Poetry Center, Passaic County Community College, One Paterson, NJ 07505-1179
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