SOURCE: O'Connor, Mary Beth. “Ordinary Words.” Paintbrush: A Journal of Poetry and Translation 27 (2000/2001): 71-8.

In the following essay, O'Connor argues that Stone is a “sneakily political poet” who uses sly humor to comment upon imbalances of power, trivial materialism, violence, and lack of compassion.

Skewed, funny, rueful, lyrical, shocking, wise—a new collection of poems by Ruth Stone is an occasion of import. There is so much that this poet sees and understands that we need to know. She shows us both what is so mundane as to be obscured by familiarity, and so unfamiliar as to require the intuitive leap of an original and brilliant poetic mind. She also shows us who and what we don't want to see, and acknowledges the price (and rewards) of looking. And I believe that her relentless and sometimes terrible occupation of observing, seeing, and writing is urgently necessary to us...