SOURCE: Barker, Wendy. “Mapping Ruth Stone's Life and Art.” In The House Is Made of Poetry: The Art of Ruth Stone, edited by Wendy Barker and Sandra M. Gilbert, pp. 33-45. Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996.

In the following essay, the author presents a brief biography of Stone and provides a biographically informed reading of Stone's early works In an Iridescent Time and Topography.

Tillie Olsen, in the Iowa Review collection Extended Outlooks, calls Ruth Stone “one of the major poets” of the latter twentieth century, describing her poetic voice as “clear, pure, fierce” (Gilbert et al. 327). She is not alone in her high praise for this poet; numerous other prominent writers have lauded Stone's poetry: Patricia Blake in Time singles out Ruth Stone as one of the most powerful and sensuous of woman poets writing since Sappho (85). Sandra M. Gilbert praises the “terrible clarity of her...