Poetry Center to Host Stone Reading

As acclaimed poet Ruth Stone celebrates her 84th birthday, the Poetry Center at Smith College will celebrate her life and work, hosting her for a reading from her 11th collection of poems, "Ordinary Words," winner of the Eric Mathieu King Award from the Academy of American Poets. The reading will take place at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, October 5, in the Neilson Library Browsing Room.

A Virginia native and professor of English at the State University of New York, Binghamton, Stone's numerous honors include the Bunting Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowships, the Delmore Schwartz Award, the Shelley Memorial Award, and the Cerf Lifetime Achievement Award from the state of Vermont, where she has lived for many years.

Speaking of "Ordinary Words," USA Today called Ruth Stone's work "alternately witty, bawdy, touching, and profound. But never pompous. Her honesty and originality give her writing a sense of youth and newness because she looks at the world so clearly, without all the detritus of social convention the rest of us pick up along the way. Her writing proves her to be simply inspired."

Stone's other books include "Second-Hand Coat," published by David R. Godine, and "Simplicity," published by Paris Press, a local feminist press based in Ashfield, Mass., which also published "Ordinary Words."

Bookselling and signing will follow the reading, which is free and open to the public. For additional information, call Cindy Furtek at (413) 585-4891 or Ellen Doré Watson at (413) 585-3368.

September 14, 1999