| Image Credit: archive.burlingtonfreepress.com |
Ruth Stone (June 8, 1915 – November 19, 2011) was an American poet, author, and teacher who authored thirteen books of poetry. She was born in Roanoke, Virginia and raised three daughters alone after her husband, professor Walter Stone, committed suicide in 1959. Stone is the recipient of many prestigious awards and honors.
The voice of Ruth Stone reading her poem "Be Serious" is featured in the film, USA The Movie. Paintbrush: A Journal of Poetry and Translation 27 (2000/2001) was devoted entirely to Stone’s work. Her work is distinguished by an unusual tendency to draw imagery and language from the natural sciences. She wrote that her poems are "love poems, all written to a dead man" whose death caused her to "reside in limbo" with her daughters. For twenty years she traveled the US, teaching creative writing at many universities, including the University of Illinois, University of Wisconsin, Indiana University, University of California, Davis, Brandeis University, and finally settling at State University of New York Binghamton. The Ruth Stone Poetry Prize awarded by The Vermont College of Fine Arts and their literary journal Hunger Mountain is in its sixth year.
In celebration of what would have been her 100th birthday, we are featuring one of her well-known poems, Look To The Future, in her honor.
Look To The Future
By Ruth Stone
To you born into violence,
the wars of the red ant are nothing;
you, in the heart of the eruption.
I am speaking from immeasurable grass blades.
You, there on the rubble,
what is the river of vapor to you?
You who are helpless as small birds
downed on the ice pack.
You who are spoiled as
commercial fruit by the medfly.
To you the machine guns.
To you the semen of fire,
the birth of the maggot in the corpse.
You, to whom we send these gifts;
at the heart of light we are crushed together.
When the sun dies we will become one.
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