Local Poet Garners Accolades, Keeps Penning Verse

Author: Caroline Stauffer

In addition to publishing eight collections and receiving numerous accolades, including the National Book Award for poetry last November, 87-year-old Goshen, Vt., resident Ruth Stone still found time to read at an anti-war poetry reading in Manchester last Sunday.
The poetry reading was originally scheduled to be held at the White House, but First Lady Laura Bush cancelled it when she discovered that the reading had an anti-war message.
Stone accepted the National Book Foundation's award for poetry at the National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner on Wed., Nov. 20, 2002, at the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel in midtown Manhattan. Stone received the prize -- one of four awards given during the ceremony for "In The Next Galaxy," her eighth published collection of poems.
Stone has also received the American Poets Eric Mathieu King Award, the Whiting Award, the Cerf Lifetime Achievement Award from the State of Vermont and two Guggenheim Fellowships for her various collections of poetry.
In "In the Next Galaxy," Stone assumes the persona of an aging and impoverished woman who nonetheless displays a fiery confidence of knowing the ways of the world.
This vantage point is not merely a role, since all of Stone's works have been characterized by brutal honesty that reflects all that she has lived through during her 87 years. The themes of passion, loss and poverty are woven throughout her poetry.
Her husband's suicide in 1959 has been perhaps the most powerful influence in her works.
She writes openly and expressively about his death in "The Electric Fan and the Dead Man (or the widow as a useful object toward the end of the century)," a poem from in "In the Next Galaxy."
Walter Stone, a published poet with an advance for a novel, was Ruth's second husband, and she admittedly adored him. She still does not fully comprehend his death, which took place in London where he was on sabbatical.
"It was like a rock fell out of the sky," Stone told The New York Times. "There has never been anyone else."
Ruth Stone's early life was one of constant transition. She was born Ruth Perkins McDowell in 1915 in Roanoke, Va., to a family of amateur poets and painters. The family moved to Indianapolis to live with her father's family when she was three. At age 19, she married her first husband while both were students at the University of Illinois. Here, she also met Walter Stone, a graduate student at the university. Ruth divorced her husband and married Stone, following him to Harvard where he completed his graduate studies and then to Vassar where he found a teaching job.
During this period in her life, Ruth won a fellowship in poetry from The Kenyon Review, and purchased a farmhouse in Goshen -- a small town located between Middlebury and Rutland -- in 1957.
She had one daughter, Marcia, now a psychologist, with her first husband, and two with Walter --Abigail and Phoebe, who both followed the family tradition and became writers.
Ruth Stone did not publish her first book, "In an Iridescent Time," until she and the children returned to the United States immediately following Walter's death. After its publication, she received a fellowship to Radcliffe for advanced studies for women. She next accepted a job as a photography editor at a publication for children, "The Weekly Reader," in Connecticut. Stone soon, however, suffered a breakdown and returned to Vermont with her children.
Stone described her next occupation as that of a "wandering poet." Until the 1980s, she spent no more than a year or two teaching creative writing at numerous universities throughout the United States at institutions including the University of Illinois, the University of Wisconsin, Wellesley College, Indiana University and Brandeis University. In this way, Stone maintained a certain amount of anonymity although she was widely published and continued to receive awards.
Stone returned to Goshen each summer. She lives a modest lifestyle, having grown up in a family of artists and having raised three children by herself. She never saw a need for accumulating money. What money she has had she has generally given away to those in more need than herself. Her farmhouse had no running water, no central heating and no television, making the family's collection of 5,000 books the pride of the house.
Stone's reading in Manchester last Sunday is a recent example of her generous nature.
Twelve years after "In an Iridescent Time" was published, Stone finished "Topography and Other Poems." After that, she published books at relatively regular intervals.
Stone retired from The State University of New York at Binghamton three years ago, although she continues to advise a few graduate students.
According to Willis Barnstone's essay "The House Is Made of Poetry: The Art of Ruth Stone," "Stone is a legendary teacher of poetry like no one on this side of the century, which has led to many ardent converts to poetry. She has given her full spirit to instruction -- she sees, offers plain, honest criticism, and converts by her example."
The State University of New York at Binghamton awarded Stone tenure when she was 72.
Despite her failing eyesight, Stone claims she still has three books ready to publish. Her daughter Abigail is helping by typing her mother's poetry in large print so Ruth can edit it.
This winter, Stone is alternating living with her three daughters. She plans to return to her farmhouse in Goshen when the weather warms up.